I love classic kid’s movies. Disney, Pixar, animated, animals, princesses, cheesy love stories (...you get the picture)...
Because inside them often lies both a timeless story line...and at least one nugget of timeless truth.
Among my favorites?
The Lion King.
It was the first movie I watched in theatres and I’m sure the awe such of an experience has never left me. Something about the young heir to a royal throne who runs away but finds his way back to the appointed task...gets me every time.
It’s a simple story really.
And it is also my story.
But I forget that.
So did Simba.
This is my favorite clip from the film. [Seriously, click and watch the clip, it's like two minutes!] The profundity drips with every word. You see, lately, I’ve been struggling with definition. I want to know who I am – and further, who I’m becoming. Where am I going? Where am I heading? Why? I contemplate and I ponder how far I am from the intricacies of the person I was created to be...and I wonder how I get there, how I get back. Is it still there or have I lost it? And I know I would have no reason to question or speculate if I were more closely connected to the God who designed me.
Sometimes I go about my days, my life, living as if I’ve forgotten who my Father is. I go looking for where He is and what He is doing and where He’s showing up...but mostly I just see myself. I see myself because despite what I desire...my faith, my belief, my longing and yearning to know God more, is too often still all about me. This fills me with sadness and dismay. When I see me, when others see me – I want them to see my Father, the God I so wish to serve. I turn eagerly to find Him waiting inside of my expression, my hands, my words, the outsourcing of my time and talents. Instead, if I’m being honest, I need to turn away in regret. “That is not my Father, it is just my reflection...”
Rafiki, however, doesn’t allow Simba to wallow in his inability and instructs to look harder. And Mufasa starts showing up. In all actuality, Mufasa has been there - it is Simba that is finally showing up. Eagerly Rafiki notes “You see, he lives in you!” Simba doubts his father is present in his life and forgets, forgets what defines him, what he is capable of... Hillsong has a worship song that repeats over and over the line “the same power that conquered the grave is in you.” (Romans 8:11). How often do I go searching for something I already hold? What greater thing could I be searching for if the Greatest is mine?
However, I don’t live as if I hold the greatest. I am too often more willing to beat myself up for my many indiscretions than accept the grace which covers them. I will claim my failures long before I’ll claim the power I hold inside. I look into my mirror some mornings – a locked expression staring into my own piercing eyes “if they only knew who you were, what you’ve done, how far away you stand on a daily basis from the Truth you so desperately wish and so readily claim to live by. If they only knew. Anika if you only knew...” And yet sometimes a still small voice enters my self-depreciating monologue of perilous consequences. (Perilous because I forget who I am and Whom I hold.) “Look inside yourself...remember who I am. [Remember I AM] You are more than what you have become.”
Remember...
Remember. Because, Anika, you do forget.
I forget who I am. I forget that the promise of my salvation goes beyond heaven upon the death of an earthly body and transcends to the living death of my every day, my every moment, my every breath. I know these things but I forget. I forget that I’m an adopted child of the Most-High God (Galatians 3:26). That I am direct enemy of Satan (1 Peter 5:8). That my inheritance in promised (Galatians 4:7). That I am a child of light (1 Thessalonians 5:5). That I am an expression of the life of Christ because He is my life (Colossians 3:4)...
I forget who I am – at the core of my personhood, at the breath that spoke me into existence, at the realization that I who I am is not my own; I’ve been bought with a price – I forget, and so I forget who God is. If I would remember who I am then I wouldn’t be able to forget who God is, was, and will always be. I would act out of the certainty of my convictions. I would be bold, brave, ready, determined. I would have nothing to hold back at each mark of decision, each blindfolded step towards whatever lies ahead.
“Remember who you are...” Mufasa trails off to Simba. They were words to instate the courage and the strength to come to the realization of the task at hand. Simba, who ran away in fear and shame, was to remember who he was and to return to the world he left behind with a power not his own.
God calls me to remember who He is.
And allow that to be the definition of who I am.
And at the end of the day the thing I need to remember most, is that I am His.
He calls me as His own.
Nothing is going to happen in my world that is too big for the God I serve.
He holds me – just like always.
And He calls gently, “Don’t forget, Anika, you are Mine...”
You Are Mine - Enter the Worship Circle
