Managing the Great I Am

February 24, 2020

Scripture

“You don’t have to wait for the End. I am, right now, Resurrection and Life. The one who believes in me, even though he or she dies, will live. And everyone who lives believing in me does not ultimately die at all. Do you believe this?”  (John 11:25-26 MSG)

Managing the Great I Am

A smile always comes to my face when I remember a phrase “And then the Great I Am would take over” in a speech at the Orangeville’s Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast. Former mayor Gord Courtney worked with a few of us to create the event more than 25 years ago. He always attended long after he had retired up until his recent passing.

A few years ago, we invited him to be our speaker. With winsome humour and honesty, he told his story of addiction shaped by patterns of recovery and relapse, recovery and relapse, recovery and relapse. When he was on a good run on the recovery side, things went well in his marriage, family, business and community life. “But then the great I Am would take over” was his phrase describing his entry to the next relapse.

I have a very strong “Great I Am”, “I can do it”, I don’t need help”, ingredient to my character. The only true antidote for my recovery is the one who says “I Am resurrection, I AM Life, I AM truth, I AM the bread of life – and the list describing the life of our Saviour in our midst, past, present and future is long and beautiful.

Knowing there is only one Great I AM, doesn’t diminish me in my own “I am-ness”. Rather it frees me to trust that love, forgiveness, reconciliation, mercy, humility and service are worth the risk in the service of the I AM. Those qualities are in shorter supply when my own great I am takes over.

A Prayer for Today

Loving God, I’m not sure why so often I resist help from You and from those around me. It feels after all these years I’d know better than being a daily challenge to your patience. I’m sure you love me, I know most people have my best interest at heart – help me trust that and avoid the self-destructive stuff that comes from my own great I am. .…. For Jesus’ sake