Many people try to recognize the truth about the sense of life looking for it in their hearts. They look into themselves and ask themselves:

"Where am I from?

Where am I going?

Why do I exist?"

A large number of people having asked this question ended their life with suicide, as with an only exit from the hopelessness of the senselessness of their lives. Looking into themselves many could see nothing more than their own misery. Instead of looking at the sun of justice, many continued to look at their own darkness all the time until the darkness swallowed them completely.

Is the question "Who am I?" the best question one can ask himself? Is that question posed to a right person?

It is real that the sense of our life can be known best by the Person Who also has given us the life as a gift - the Creator and Redeemer of the life.

The first question posed upon man when he got out from the hands of his Creator was directed to the first person he saw then.

After having been created, Adam did not see himself at a mirror and ask himself:

"Who am I?

Where am I from?

Where am I going?

Why do I exist?"

What was happening to the persons who was asking that question? Let us look what the Bible says:

The question "Who am I?" (Exodus 3:11) was asked by Moses, when God called him to save the tribe of Israel from the Egyptian slavery. Moses became afraid of his life task because he had started from a wrong question. He had thought about himself, his moral values and his abilities, and that is why he became discouraged.

However, by His answer, God showed that, when He is present, the question "Who am I?" is irrelevant: "I will be with you!" (Exodus 3:12)

It does not matter who we are and what we are like, but what is our Lord like. Why to limit oneself with one's own self and one's own weaknesses, when God's mercy and His power is at one's disposal?!

God speaks to each heart which feels its own weakness:

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9)

"Your strength is not in multitude, neither is your power in mighty ones but You are the God of humbled ones, savior of little ones, weak ones lean upon you, refuge for homeless, savior of hopeless." Judith 9,11.

When we have lost confidence in ourselves, let us raise our look above. When we allow God that our weakness become His strength, than we shall say together with apostle Paul:

"Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:10)

"Who are You, God?" (Acts 9:5)

This question was asked by the future apostle Paul at a crossroads of his life. The patient and merciful God responded to him:

"I am Jesus who you chase after" (Acts 9:5)

In the response to the most important life question the future apostle understand with awe all his rebelliousness and enmity of his nature toward God. But, he also understood the wonderful truth that the force of God's mercy is stronger than the force of his nature. Therefore, even the very fact of recognizing himself as God's enemy did not mean an end of his life, but precisely its new beginning.

Differently to the questions "Who am I? Where do I come from? Where do I go to?" which are burdening, the understanding of the answer to the question "Who are You, Lord? Why were You on the Earth? When are You going to come again?", means - life:

"And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." (John 17:3)

When Moses asked "Show we now Your way, that I may know You" and "Please, show me Your glory." (Exodus 33:13.18), in answering to his prayer God did not bring Moses in state of nirvana, nor dazzle him by sensational scientific knowledge, but He simply revealed His character:

"And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation." (Exodus 34:6- 7)

The one who is "delighted" (Proverbs 8:31) in being with sons of man invites us to a salutary meeting:

"Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, ye that are escaped of the nations: ... have not I the Lord? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me. Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else." (Isaiah 45:20-22)

Asking God the question "Who are you?" we will get eventually also the answer to the question "Who am I?"

The Old Testament prophet Zechariah says that the Saviour will retain the scars of his wounds on his hands, and when the saved in eternity come and ask their Saviour: "What are these wounds on your body?" (Zechariah 13:6), they will hear the wonderful story about God's love for sinner, they will hear the answer:

"The wounds I was given at the house of my friends." (Zechariah 13:6)

Let us look at the Saviour's hands and we will get an answer to the question "Who am I?"

"Shout for joy, O heavens; rejoice, O earth; burst into song, O mountains! For the Lord comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones. But Zion said, 'The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.' Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me." (Isaiah 49:13-16)

CONCLUSION

Contrary to dealing with ourselves which burdens us (failures discourage us, and successes induce us to take the burden of pride upon ourselves, etc.), we have the honor to uplift our thoughts to God. Then, our failures induce us to rely more completely upon God, while our successes fill us with gratitude towards Him.