WHO AM I?
He went into it with his eyes open and finally endured what he always knew he would endure if he was taken. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the thirty-nine year old Lutheran preacher, I mean. He was an outspoken critic of Hitler and his regime, plotted with German military intelligence to kill the tyrant and worked with the resistance movements to shepherd Jews out of the country to safety. He was arrested in 1943 and after about eighteen months in prison he was brutally stripped, tortured, led out naked to execution and [like so many others] hanged with piano wire to prolong the dying process. About three weeks later Hitler committed suicide and something like a week later Germany surrendered.
It isnt easy to say where his changing theology would have led him had he lived longer but with good reason hes been admired as a hero and a man of profound faith, moral strength and sensitivity. Thats how many of his contemporaries saw him and its how tens of thousands see him today. How he saw himself at times is revealing and while its surprising it isnt really surprising. For good or ill, how others see us isnt always how we really are and how we see ourselves isnt always how we really are. In any case, heres what Bonhoeffer said about himself in his poem: Who Am I?
Who am I? They often tell me I would step from my cell's confinement
calmly, cheerfully, firmly, like a squire from his country-house.
Who am I? They often tell me I would talk to my warden freely and
friendly and clearly, as though it were mine to command.
Who am I? They also tell me I would bear the days of misfortune equably, smilingly, proudly, like one accustomed to win.
Am I then really all that which other men tell of, or am I only what I
know of myself, restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat, yearning for colours, for flowers, for the voices of birds, thirsting for words of kindness, for neighbourliness, trembling with anger at despotisms and petty humiliation, tossing in expectation of great events, powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance, weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making, faint and ready to say farewell to it all.
Who am I? This or the other? Am I one person today, and tomorrow
another? Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others, and before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling? Or is something within me still like a beaten army, fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine. Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine.
In the end it doesnt matter who others think we are or even who we think we are (see 1 Corinthians 4:3-4). If were his the rest doesnt matter. In saying that I dont mean anything as silly as, the rest doesnt hurt or give pleasure. Of course it does but whether it hurts or pleases, ultimately our reputation doesnt matter.
But it goes deeper than that. If indeed we are Gods children in and through his final work in Jesus Christ it doesnt matter that in fact we are weaklings or Herculean figures, it doesnt matter if in fact we fail often or experience victories on a daily basis or if we struggle vainly to overcome some besetting sin. If we are his, if he has drawn us to him and we have committed to him on his terms whatever else we are God knows we are his and we know we know it too. G.Wade Robinson said it well for us:
Heaven above is softer blue
Earth beneath is sweeter green
Something lives in every hue
That Christless eyes have never seen.
Birds with gladder songs overflow
Stars with deeper beauty shine
Since I know as now I know
I am his and he is mine.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.