I Am

Exodus 3:13-15

¹³ Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

¹⁴ God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

¹⁵ God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.

I should just stop checking Facebook around Christmas time. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the pictures of snow and family and presents and cookies and trees. In fact, I love all that stuff. It’s all the engagement announcements that bother me. This year especially, it seems that an inordinate number of people received or gave diamonds for Christmas. I got six updated relationship statuses in my news feed inside three weeks, and while I am genuinely happy for all my friends and their new bling, it’s the Save-the-Date! cards from the kids I babysat that really get me. I see their beaming faces, their sparkly jewelry, their overt love for one another, and—after resisting the urge to vomit—I usually say something along the lines of “Holy $#!+! There’s no way you’re old enough to get married! Are you even old enough to drive?!” This coupled with my recent discovery of gray hairs (not blonde, gray!) makes me feel old. I’m only 28. I don’t like feeling old.

I was lamenting this state of affairs to a friend who, after listening patiently to my rant, said as lovingly as she could, “It sounds like you’re not so much upset about being old as you are jealous.”

Called out. Well, no use hiding it now.

“I am jealous!” I yelled.

“Kinda sounds like you’re angry, too.”

“I am angry!”

“Scared?”

“I am scared!”

“What else?”

“Everything else. I’m hurt and I’m questioning and I’m feeling left out, but I’m also happy and I’m excited and I’m blessed and I’m super confused and I’m—I’m—I’m—I just am!”

It was at approximately this point, after rattling off a list of I am’s that a small bell rang in the back of my head. I am. I had heard this somewhere before; somewhere special. Oh right. The beginning of the story of the Exodus.

I had never really understood the whole God-as-I-Am statement, and my inner grammarian has always been bothered by the syntax of that declaration, but a few years ago while preparing a sermon for a youth service at Fortwilliam Macrory Presbyterian Church in Belfast, Northern Ireland, I realized that the God-as-I-Am idea isn't so much about nomenclature as it is about presence, a state of being.

God is. When God says, “I Am who I Am” I don’t think he means “Hello! My name is I Am” I think he means “You want to know who I am? Look around. See that sunrise? That’s me. See that mountain vista? That’s me. Hear that music? That’s me. Sense that friendship? That’s me. See that _____? Hear that _____? Sense that _____? That’s all me. I Am all that.” It wasn't until my little tirade, however, that I realized that God also says, “Feel that emotion? That’s me, too.” God is in the sunrise as much as he is in the appreciation of the sunrise. God is. God is everything we see, think, hear, and feel. Good, bad, and ugly, he is all of it.

It’s easy to comprehend that God is happiness or joy or compassion; those are positive emotions. But surely God can’t be negative emotions? In things like jealousy and anger? Actually, yes, I think he can be and is. I felt really apprehensive about the thought that when I admit, “I am jealous!” that God is in that jealousy until I remembered that throughout the Old Testament God says, “I am a jealous God.”

Our God is a jealous God. Our God gets angry. Our God gets upset. Our God gets frustrated. I think we forget this. I know I do. Yes, jealousy and anger and sadness can consume in a terrible way if they are allowed too, but they can also be powerful catalysts for change. (See also: Jesus driving the money changers out of the temple.) I think we forget that sometimes it’s okay to be jealous or angry or sad or upset. Somehow we get caught up in the idea that our faith is all rainbows and butterflies and that if we just trust Jesus then we’ll be happy all the time. If we reside in the Spirit, then we’ll never be lonely or upset or frustrated or anything other than blissfully content with life and we’ll all ride around on purple unicorns.

I call b.s.

Jesus never said anything about being happy all the time; in fact I’m pretty sure he said the road of discipleship would be hard and dangerous and fraught with difficulty. But he also promised to be there on the road with us. He went before and he comes after and he walks along beside. Because he’s been there and he is there. God is with us the whole way, in the jealousy, the anger, the pain, the frustration, the joy, the sorrow, the happiness, the confusion, the stillness, the I-just-don’t-know. After all, God is. He said so himself, “I Am.”

It’s easy to look around and wonder where God is. I used to think that anger or sadness or frustration or pain was the absence of God’s presence; that somehow because of these things I was left alone. Then I realized—and I’m still working on living this—that not only is that crap theology since God himself said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you,” but it also assumes that God doesn't care. It forgets the fact that God has already said, “I Am. I Am all that. I Am in all that.” God cares deeply, not only about our spirits and bodies, but about our emotions, too. Anger and sadness and frustration and pain aren't necessarily the absence of God; in fact, I believe that most of the time God is angry and sad and frustrated and hurt right along with us. Because God is.

So, yeah, I may be a lot of things. Like jealous and angry and happy and excited and confused and frustrated and blessed and totally out to lunch. And I may get angry at Facebook and yell at the mailman for delivering Save-the-Date! cards. But God is and he is right there with me. Because in spite of all the things I am and all the things I’m not, when it comes down to it, there’s one “I am…” that’s the most important for me.

I am a child of God.