Episode 1. Lost Without A Passport
Have you ever sat down and wondered – who am I? Where’s my life headed? Am I being the me that I was meant to be? Well, you’re not alone. We all ask those questions at some point. Join Berni, …
I remember once a few years back being at the airport in Christchurch, New Zealand. My international flight from Australia was late getting in and I had to race to make the last domestic connection that night to my final destination, Wellington. And in the rush I left my passport lying in one of those luggage trolleys at the international terminal. Something I didn’t realise until I was checking in on the domestic flight at the next terminal. Panic attack, can you imagine losing your passport while you’re overseas? No passport, no identity. No identity, now what? How could I tell people that I was me? I couldn’t leave the country, I couldn’t stay there. It turns out that our identity is very important.
Well I won’t keep you in suspense, the domestic and international terminals in Christchurch are about ten minutes walk apart so I raced down to the domestic terminal and the taxi didn’t want to take me because it’s such a short fare, he said, “Catch the shuttle bus.” Of course, didn’t have time to do that so I paid him $30.00 and we raced back and I went to the police station off to one side of the domestic terminal in Christchurch. And there was a young policewoman in there and I explained my problem and she said, “Yes, an Australian passport has just been handed in.” And then she asks me, get this, “Do you have any ID?” I couldn’t believe it, I said, “Yes.” I was a bit stressed at this point, “It’s my passport, there’s a photo in the front.” “Oh yeah.” It dawned on her. Anyway I received my passport, I made the flight and all was well.
I’ve never forgotten that, you know you can’t travel without your passport, its clear tangible evidence of your identity. You know I think the same is true in life; we need to know ‘who am I?’ Other people need to know who we are; it’s so basic, it’s so fundamental. So many people don’t have a deep sense of who they are. It’s a problem deep down and it’s not something we talk much about, but it’s there and as I talk to people I think it goes something like this. Often we live life day to day without thinking, just go along and do the things we always do, go to work or go to school or look after the kids, whatever it is. But bubbling away deep inside somewhere is a sense of ‘What’s this all about? Why am I doing this? What’s the point?’ The reality is this, we just have one life to live here on earth, it’s not a dress rehearsal, we can’t hit the rewind button and play it again. When today’s gone, it’s gone, that’s it. And every year, every week, every day, every moment that you and I have lived up to this point is gone. We can never get it back. The only thing left in our time here on earth is the time between right now and when we breathe our last breath.
It’s a sobering thought and at the same time most people have some sort of sense of destiny, whether or not they believe in Jesus or some god even, they believe in things that are meant to be. How often have you heard someone say, ‘well that was just meant to be’ or ‘if it’s meant to be it will happen’? Whether it’s karma or whether it’s “Que sera sera, whatever will be will be.” We all have some sense of a future and a destiny to be fulfilled. It’s as though there’s some intelligent destiny or design that we just can’t put our fingers on. I believe that’s there because each one of us, you and I and everybody else have been made in the image of God. Each one of us, and when we look at the time we have left in the context of some sort of sense of destiny a profound question of life emerges, ‘Am I being the me that I was meant to be?’ It’s a huge question, it’s not about having things, it’s about being.
The turning point of my life was when I was reading a book and the author asked this question, “Do you want to be or do you want to have?” And I realised very clearly that I was one of those people who wanted ‘to have’ and having things is not being. Having is about the next car and sound system and pair of shoes and ‘being’ is a profound sense of joy and contentment, being really happy with who we are and what we’re doing and how we’re living and enjoying the relationships that we have. And when I realised that, it was so incredibly unsettling for me because I tried to live it my way, I tried to do stuff my way and it was empty.
Let me ask you something, as you contemplate the remaining time that you have left here on planet earth. When you ask yourself the question, am I being the me that I was meant to be, what’s the answer? Yes or no? If your answer’s yes, then you’re talking about some profound sense of joy and peace and contentment, the sort of stuff I was talking about just before. If the answer’s no, then probably there’s this nagging sense that we’re missing out on something. Is that all there is? Surely there must be something more? You know my experience is most people, by far the majority, are in the ‘no’ category. They have a sense of some destiny but they also have a sense that they’re not really living it out.
That’s why we’re doing this series over the next couple of weeks on the program called “Being the Me I Was Meant to Be”. To, I don’t know, help us to unscramble that and maybe get a solid foundation of life sorted out in our hearts, get our lives on track, to live them out to the full. So that when we’re on death’s door we can look back at our lives with a deep sense of satisfaction and say to ourselves, ‘I lived it to the full, I became the me that I was meant to be, and now I’m ready for an eternity with my God’.
You know, for me, the starting point of all of that is an understanding of who I was meant to be, it’s knowing where I’ve come from and who I am. You know what I found when I was growing up? I mean even when I was a young adult? The world kind of wants to project different images of what we should be onto us. I mean one of the things that’s very topical in the news where I live at the moment is the whole ‘clothes/women/modelling’ industry, you know how they always have really, really skinny models and it projects an image on women that in order to have a sense of value they have to be really, really skinny and of course that feeds the whole anorexia and bulimia thing. Now that’s an extreme example but, I don’t know, the world wants us to be rich and attractive and have things and they’re all the images of success. And yet the richer we get the more there seems to be so many people who in the middle of their lives aren’t really comfortable with who they are, don’t really have a sense of security, they feel like a cork bobbing around in a stormy ocean.
Today all we’ve done is really just talked about the problem, if I can call it that, the nagging thing inside that so many people feel, and I want to encourage you, have a think about it. You know we often don’t stop and think about life. Just stop and look at your life from A Different Perspective and say, “Is that me?” Because this week and next week on the program we’ll be unpacking and exploring this whole subject, am I being the me that I was meant to be? I hope you’ll join me and if you miss any of the programs don’t forget to visit our website, www.adifferentperspective.org.
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