Who are you?

     My friend Steve has a phone that does everything plus a few other things.  I'm not very technology gifted so I don't go there unless I have to.  Recently Steve was on his phone exploring.  Suddenly I heard him say, "Who am I?"  He wasn't talking to me.  His phone then had a conversation with him trying to answer his question.  The computer finally said, "That's for you to decide."  Obviously, the computer era is marching ahead while I'm taking a 20 year break!  Steve also queried the computer with "What is the meaning of life."  Same result but it was interesting how many ways the computer did try to answer the question before reaching the resulting answer.  With the computer era growing by leaps and bounds every day I become more and more outdated.  My phone can make calls, answer calls, and text.  I'm sure that it does other things.  I just don't know how to get it to do those other things.  In about 20 years I may be where Steve and his phone are today.  Maybe.
     While technology continues to become more adapt and available to our lives there are also the problems they bring.  I love to cook.   I love to make up recipe's.  Sometimes the recipe's aren't edible.  I don't make them again.  See how simple and easy that was?  Then it happened.  I set a glass on the control pad.  I'm not sure which button I pushed in doing so.  The result was my stove was locked down!  I couldn't open the oven and the stove couldn't do anything I commanded it to do.  I thought myself clever in turning off the electricity to the house and back on again.  My hope was to "reset" the original specifications and go on happily with life.  Tried that twice and came up with the same problem.  I tried for about 1/2 hour to get the stove unlocked with no such thing happening.  So, I did what any good man would do.  I broke down and read the manual that came with the stove.  Yep, I read the instructions and was almost laughing when I read that you push the lock button 3 times and set the time in order to unlock the locked stove!  Who knew?!  I would like to talk with whoever wrote the manual one day.
     Sometimes life is like asking a schizophrenic to tell us who we are.  He may give an answer but we know it will most likely be not what is the truth.  People in different walks of life will give us a different answer by their perspective of who they are.  All one needs to do to get the answer they want to hear is ask someone who is in a profession most like how they are living their lives.  But, that won't really answer the question.  Like myself, people want the real answer but are afraid of it at the same time.  In my book, "While I was Yet Sinning" I explore questions about, expectations of, and problems with what God says we need to be. When everything is said and done, we, like Paul, need to say, "it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me.  Our answer to the question is simple but so rarely accepted and implemented.  We, as believers, want to be the captain of our own ship as well as captain of our soul. 
     When we finally get around to asking God the question, "Who are you?" or "Who am I?" God answers quite simply.  He says we are his children.  We are children of the living God.  Complex simple people who live on love and starve on the world.  We may have access to the world but we don't need to live a life based on the world.  In God's world, we are children whom he cares for and provides for.  It's when we focus on who we are in the world that we get off track.  Children are not that way.  They are easily directed and refocused.  God never tires of that work in our lives.  Our lives, conversely, are wonderful when we choose to be God's kid and terrible when we choose to be the worlds kid.  It's once again all up to us and our choice.  Complex or simple.  The world or God.  Simple.  Let's all be kids and play together.