Who are you? No, really, who are you?

So today I was tweeting back and forth with a dear ministry friend, and we were just dialoguing about ministry stuff.   There are only a few people that I can really hash it out with about Christian ministry.  I know why that’s the case, but I’ll save that for a blog post or the book or both.  Anyway, he and I keep up with the same blogs and events and organizations that have captured ministry in a relevant capacity.  Whenever we launch into these discussions, I can breathe a sigh of relief because I know that I am not the only one who is crazy about ministry.  I’m like a kid in a candy shop when I can talk to fellow Jesus Freaks, because I get to have a moment of passion without scaring someone off because they think that I’m trying to be deep.  Not the case…I just love Jesus and ministry.

Anyway, while we were tweeting back and forth it occurred to me that my life is mine and I determine who I am and what I do.  Now you might be saying to yourself, “DUH, of course you are who you say you are!”  But I am not sure that it’s that easy.  You see, I think that people are afraid to declare themselves artists and singers and poets and writers and dancers and athletes and entrepreneurs and preachers… because declaring yourself to be a person who takes nothing and makes something out of it is gutsy and brazen.  Right?  It’s audacious to think you can be the President of the United States or the sole proprietor of Tika’s Nail Design Shop or a ROCK STAR.  Yeah it is!

I remember when I had a stint at doin’ some stand-up comedy.  I loved it, but I struggled with the fact that when you stand up before people to make them laugh, what you’re really saying is that you are funny as beans.  Not only are you declaring that you are funny, you’re telling people that you have the material, delivery and relevance to make them laugh.  That scared the bejeebies out of me, because I felt arrogant.  When really I wasn’t arrogant, I was just confident…afterall, I can make myself laugh a little bit, and I love to make people laugh.  My biggest struggle has been with music.  I love music.  I write it.  I try to play it and thrash it out on the gee-tar.    Through the years, I’ve been so afraid of making that declaration, because I’ve always thought, “what if I don’t really have it…the it factor.”  So I put it and everything else on the back burner of my heart dismissing my passions as frivolous and a waste of time.  THIS IS EVIL at its finest…make no mistake about it.  Steven Pressfield calls it the Resistance in his book the War of Art.

I mean I think about my own life and the things that I love to do.  I’ve been afraid to declare them as identifiers, because I’ve been waiting on the approval of others.  You’re a singer when other people tell you can sing, but people can tell you sing well all day, until you believe it, you’re not.  You’re a writer when you write a book and you do that for a living and you’re poor and searching for a publisher…LOL!.  You’re a comedian when you don’t have another job and you can make people laugh about it.  Honestly, I think that it’s malarkey, total malarkey.

I am who, I say I am.

Now you theologians out there might be thinking to yourself, you are who God says you are.  True, but how many people deny that.  My heart is telling me that God wants us to be the people that we continue to bury under books and force to stare at computer screens all day.  We deny ourselves when Tivo other people’s lives  in hopes of filling our own lives.  People aren’t living their lives.  We’re living through others’ lives…Twitter and Facebook and LOST and 24 and Ray-Js Burning Love Feast and The Biggest Loser and Extreme Home Makeover.

God wants us to get some gut action and come with it! Man-up…Woman-up!  This of course is easier said than done.  There’s a lot to overcome and filter through to get to this place, but it’s worth the declaration.  My journey of faith in Christ is what did it for me.  He saved my wretched life and I chased Him…still do.

It’s worth the declaration.  That’s what they did, your old classmates and neighbors, everybody, but you.  No one invited John Mayer to be a musician.  He sang, he wrote a song and he became a brand, a little loose in the mouth, but a brand.  I have a musician friend, Tyler.  You can find him here.  Tyler is 27 and he is a full-time professional musician.  That’s what he is.  It’s not a side job.  It’s his life and he lives by faith and fury and passion.  I appreciate him, because he aint no punk!  My girlfriend, Audrey, just wrote a fabulous book, Enough Good News.  We’ve been talking about it forever and she hammered it out!  I still need to send her a check by the way.  These are people I know, who’ve endured No’s (should there be an apostrophe here?) and criticism, but they yearned to be themselves in their greatest most authentic forms.  It’s got to be easier than playing this crazy game, where you wish you could be the real you 24/7 and do what the real you loves.  I don’t know about you, but I’m so tired of it.

Isn’t that what we really need to stop doin’…being punks?  Be who you are.  So two of the tweets I sent looked like this:

(1st)  as for job hell, been there done that. There are few things I’m declaring…I’m a writer, I’m a creative, I’m a global junkie…My life is

(2nd)…exactly what it is…(it’s) mine. God gave it to me. He’s taking care of me and I’m gonna do my best to take care of Him.   

That’s all I’m sayin’.