Present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life. – Romans 6:13
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the German Christian leaders who stood against the Nazi regime. Bonhoeffer was an inspiration to many. But when he looked into his own heart he wasn’t so sure. He expressed this conflict in a poem called “Who Am I?”, written from his prison cell shortly before he was martyred.
“Who am I?…
Am I then really all that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I know of myself,
restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat,
yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
trembling with anger at despotisms and petty humiliation,
tossing in expectation of great events,
powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?
Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today, and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
and before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
fleeing in disorder from a victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, thou knowest, O God, I am Thine.”
You may have all kinds of struggles and fears, but you belong to Christ. His resurrection life is in you by the Holy Spirit. So, offer yourself as you are, because you belong to Christ.
Do you have some struggles and fears? Do you belong to Christ? Will you offer yourself to Him as you are now?
