Finding Direction: The Wind Vane Chronicles

In my last two posts I’ve talked about some different, seemingly divergent, topics.

I talked of several people in totally different contexts who are all intelligent, well educated people who “know their stuff” in their respective fields and many others in life. One was an expert graphoanalyist who “read” my handwriting. Three others were my grown children.

At the end of my first post I left you with this statement the graphoanalyist kept using, that I found provocative and gave you several questions to think about:

“We are all three people:

1) WHO WE THINK WE ARE;
2) WHO OTHERS THINK WE ARE;
3) WHO WE REALLY ARE.

Handwriting analysis tells us who we really are.”

The second I ended by asking you to think about what the scientific term “the slide is set” means, if you knew or know. I said I’d give you my marine biologist son, Mark’s, explanation and my thoughts on both of these sayings and more.

So have you been thinking about them?

My first two observations today are about my conversations with these people, including the terminology and language they used (and I’m including the lady and all 3 of my kids here) in discussing matters pertaining to all of us here today. While I appreciate each of these individuals for all of their accomplishments and expertise in many matters of this world, that is secondary to me to who they really are by God’s standards and measurements, if you will.

Let me explain here in my second observation. My conversation with the handwriting lady, who claimed to be able to tell me through her expertise “who I really am,” was much different in many ways in tenor and tone than my talks with David, Rebecca and Mark about who I really am, as they see me.

You see, the handwriting analyist never once mentioned any spiritual insights she had or could glean from my life in my writing. My children, on the other hand, all talked with me and I with them about many spiritual things regarding all of our lives. They used, as did I, totally different “measurements” in thinking about and examining “who we all think we are,” who “others think we are” and “who we each really are.”

The topics David, Rebecca, Mark and I discussed were identical in content to the statement the handwriting analyist made, but our conclusions were based on completely different principles than her’s. She said “Handwriting analysis tells us who we really are.” What measurement did we use and can we – should we – all use? Is there a viable measurement that we can use in this life to determine who we really are?

I believe there is.

In Micah 6:8, Micah tells us that God has shown us what we need to know in this world to “become” who He would have us be:

“8 He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.”

As we contemplate this sobering text (and there are many more I could cite along this line), we should keep these general biblical themes in mind— God has given each of us free moral agency and, ultimately, requires individual accountability for how we live our lives. These two threads, which run throughout the Bible, seem to be summarized by the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:10. There the Holy Spirit directs Paul to write:

“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive what is due them for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”

Let me give you Mark’s scientific explanation for the term “the slide is set” and how I think it applies to our lives and ties together with how we measure our live as to who we really are.

Mark said that term is used by scientists and physicians who examine living tissue of any kind, whether living organisms or parts of organisms, in biopsies or whatever kind of scientific study, at the moment in time that they have collected the sample, mixed it with any reagents needed, and it is captured forever in that state, ceasing to undergo any further changes, for inspection and study under powerful microscopes.

The same will hold true for our own lives, Mark thinks and so do I, at the moment our physical existence on this earth ceases when for each of us “the slide will be set” for God to examine on that great day of judgment. Whatever we have done up until that point, good or bad, whatever opportunities we missed, however we squandered away our time and our talents, or however we used them for good for the Lord – all will be set and cannot then be changed.

Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 12:7-8 about death here on earth that:

“7 the dust returns to the ground it came from,
and the spirit returns to God who gave it.”

The Apostle John saw that judgment day in revelation and wrote:

“11Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them.
12And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.
13The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done.
14Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death.
15If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” Rev. 20:11-15

Both Donna and Greg touched on vital components of these things in comment, I think – “who we think we are, who others think we are and who we really are” – and how we can apply ourselves to knowing and understanding them for the sake of our eternal souls.

Donna pointed out that who we think we are and who we really are should become as closely aligned as we can possibly make them. Tom says this all the time of himself and how he perceives we all should attempt to “be.” He’s a strong believer that even if you keep things about yourself from other people – even all others at times – you should strive to be totally honest with yourself about who you really are and what you are really like.

I agree, both on a practical level and spiritual level. I think that’s not only possible, but necessary. And I believe when we do that, we will “walk humbly” before our Father and before all because we will recognize and be fully cognizant of our true position and worth in this life as God measures it.

Greg commented that he believes the purpose of community and friendship is help us each do that very thing. As a minister, he says, “if I do nothing more than get them (his congregation) to see who they are in Christ, I’ve done my job.”

I believe this is the job we each should be about all day long every day left in this earthly life we each have. Our days here on earth are numbered and they are fewer every day.

We should all be examining ourselves against God’s measurements to get to know ourselves as we really are, to make ourselves conform to God’s standards and to help everyone around us do the same. And we must be zealous about doing so before the slide is set, when we can no longer change and grow, so we will be prepared for that day of judgment, will find our names written in God’s book of life eternal and will enter into the glories of Heaven.