"But who do you say that I am?"

"Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’ "  Matthew 16:13-19

"But who do you say that I am?"

Who do you say God is?  Doesn't our entire faith and perspective fall on how we answer this question?  Who is God for you?  Where is God for you?  What is God for you?  How do you answer these questions?  Do you answer them? 

You live your life based on your answers to these questions.  No matter the answers.  I believe God will ask this vital question to each one of us.  It is more important than how we spent our time, our money, did we have a successful career, did we get married or not, have kids or not, go to college or not?  Did we go on vacation to the beach or the mountains, did we achieve our dreams or did we sit trapped in fear of failure? 

If you can answer the question "Who do you say I am?" then you can begin to answer the question "Who do you say you are?"  Are you living your life from a place of blessed abundance or do you live a life reacting to scarcity?  It's all about perspective.  It's the cup of life.  Are you half full or are you half empty?  Or are you overflowing?  People tend to forget the third option. 

I don't believe our answers are static, we grow, we learn, we breathe, we move.  We change, we ponder, we imagine, we dream.  We act.  When we can answer the question "But who do you say that I am?"

We can act on the answer.  Once we begin to live in answer to the question we can shape our life.  As our life takes shape we can take a step back and ask again. 

Do you ever watch the show Intervention?  The show fascinates me on so many different levels.  I don't believe there is an episode I haven't cried through.  Every show begins with the baby picture, the innocence and every show in the middle has the broken life, trapped in some addiction or another.  The life of the baby is gone, it is trapped under layers and layers of "stuff" for want of a better word - that could take a dozen posts to contemplate all the reasons why we accept addiction instead of freedom.  Interesting to me is God sees through the "stuff" in an instant.  He continues to ask us the same question "But who do you say that I am?" 

To break our own cycles of addictions and habits (good or bad) we should take the time to contemplate our answers.  I know some will say "if I only had time to do that" or "when I get time to do that I will" - but isn't that in and of itself your answer to the question?