What God Starts, God Completes

"I was supposed to have been aborted... but that is not my identity. I was abandoned, abused, and kidnapped - all before I was five years old... but that is not my identity. I hear folks talk about their identity in terms of their heredity - I am English or I am a Choctaw Indian. I am both of those things... but that is not my identity. Some say, "I was adopted" or "I was orphaned" or "My father was a drunk and my mother insane," and that is their identity. I could, myself, use those phrases to describe my life... but that is not my identity. "I was divorced" and "I lost my kids" and "I made some terrible choices" are all monikers that some use to describe their essential personhood... but not me, even though I could utter those hard confessions to you now. "I was a successful businessman, a 'golden-haired fast tracker,' grooming for the vice-presidency of a major corporation. That is who I am." I was that, too... but that is not who I am... "My identity is, quite simply, completely related to Jesus Christ. Some reading this will not like my saying that. They will want more. They will want "depth." They will want "irony." But He is all there is to me. I am as deep as this: I have only Him. There is no mystery, irony, or feature about me that is amazing or even interesting but that He chose me and I am His. That is the story of stories as far as I can tell. You need to know that I am not a religious man, as one might think of that term, even though I am an ordained Presbyterian minister. I am simply a disciple, a follower of Jesus of Nazareth. Sometimes I follow him closely and sometimes I don't, to my own hurt and my own shame. But I am His. And He is minein the sense that He has given His life to me."