Have you ever had someone ask you that question? Often the question is asked right after you’ve tried to do something that is reserved for others, perhaps for dignitaries or famous people. Or, maybe you’ve tried to cut into a line, like the football player in the pizza commercial. You’ve tried to claim a privilege that you are not due. Who do you think you are?
In today’s post to his blog Jack’s Winning Words, Pastor Freed used this quote – “The difference between you and God is that God doesn’t believe he’s you.” (Anne Lamott)
It’s not so much that we actually believe that we are God as it is that we tend to try to control things in our lives as if we were God. We try to bend things to our will. As Jack put it in his post, we tend to pervert the Lord’s prayer to read “My will be done.” Who do you think you are?
When God gave humankind free will, it also gave birth to man’s ego and that ego grew to believe that men could control their own destinies. One perversion of thinking that comes out of this ego-driven way of thinking is the confusion over what things are privileges and what things are rights. Men who develop God complexes often believe that everything they are doing is their right. It is that ability to forget who we are and assume privileges as rights that allowed the settlers of America to displace the Native Americans that they found here. The settlers and those who followed claimed that it was their “manifest destiny” to take the land. The Native Americans were asking all along- Who do you think you are?
The same God-like ego allowed the introduction of slavery into America. After all, the slave owners told themselves, these slaves were not men and women like us. There was certainly a lot of precedence in the Bible for slavery and, after all, they were God’s good 
Christians, so it was OK. The slaves had a different view of things and asked, Who do you think you are?
In today’s world, we have many people in business and government who assume the mantle for God to tell us what is good for us. They see nothing wrong with raising the price of a drug by 1,000% or evicting homeless people from the hovels in which they found shelter. They pass laws that they say will prevent us from harming ourselves or push products upon us for conditions that we did not know we had. They see nothing wrong with depleting our natural resources and polluting our environment. They get indignant when we ask, Who do you think you are?
Yet, that is the question that we need to continue to ask- of them and of ourselves. It 
starts with getting your own head straight about who you are and how you relate to God. Once you figure out the part about “Thy will be done”; then you can ask the real questions, “How can I help? What is my role?” First, you must correctly answer the question, “Who do you think you are?” Then you are ready to say to God, “Here I am, send me.”
So, think about it, before you set out on another day, Who do you think you are?
Posted by Norm Werner 
seek to refocus people from thinking that God made those bad things happen and being confused about why onto looking instead to God for help in dealing with the bad things and our reactions to them. I don’t ever pray to God to protect me from all bad things, but rather to help me make good decisions in life to be better able to deal with what comes my way.
things that happen to us and we should ask for his help to make good decisions and for the strength to deal with the bad things that might happen. We must accept the bad with the good when we pray, “Thy will be done.” However, we can go on in that prayer to recognize and thank God for the good things and to ask for His help in dealing with the bad things.
that may dwell there. For, when you imagine that star that guided the wise men to that manger in Bethlehem, you are seeing the star that will guide your soul back home, to God.
feeling, that homesickness. Many believe that the accumulation of worldly power or wealth is the answer. Some turn to drugs or alcohol to try to quiet the sense of loss. Some may fall into mental illness trying to deal with this unknown and unrelenting feeling of loneliness and fear. Eventually, all souls realize that the only answer is to look to the sky, find the star that guided the wise men so long ago and follow it home…back to God.
fears, self-doubt or perhaps the opinions of others. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t listen to common sense when it is trying to prevent you from doing something really stupid or self-destructive. That’s not self-doubt; that’s self preservation. Live Life anchors up.
Some go through their life held back by the opinions of others. They may here “You’ll never amount to anything” from their own family. They may be teased or bullied at school, perhaps because of how they look or act. Some overcome that or escape those anchors to go on to become famous actors/actresses, scientists or to excel in their field. There are also lots of stories about that in the stories about the lives of famous people. Live life anchors up.
here before that you must first love yourself before you can love others or help others or become happy with your life. When faced with barriers we must replace fear and self-doubt with hope and hard work. We must turn guilt into resolve to do better next time. We must become focused upon forming our own opinions and learning from our mistakes, rather than wallowing in self-pity. Live life anchors up.
right with God and go with the flow that He has in mind for you. God is not an anchor holding you back; He is the wind taking you forward. Tell God, “I’m ready to pull up my anchors and go where you want me to go. I put my trust in you. Not my will, but thy will be done.” Then hold on for the journey through life that you’ve been dreaming about. Live life anchors up.
imagine having two minds inside your brain, one which sees the world as heaven and one that only sees darkness and hell. A bi-polar person may actually be living that experience, although only one of the minds may be in control at any one time. Schizophrenics may house many minds, perhaps with more than one “mind” fighting for control at any given time.
themselves and how they work. Much of the work in this area of science has focused upon how the brain controls various functions of our bodies or how it gathers, sorts, stores and recalls the information that it encounters in order to build our knowledge base. Yet to be understood is how the brain is capable of original thoughts. It may be that most of what we think of as original thoughts are really just well organized paths of discovery of the origin of something or the solution to a problem.
He encounters here on earth. When you talk to God through prayer, what do you “see” in your mind’s eye? Does God sound like James Earl Jones when he answers you?
Lichtenberg)
If you are a person who feels uncomfortable or even fears being alone, try reaching out to God in those moments of panic or fear. He is there; ready to answer your call.
I’ve posted her a few times about not ending up with a bad case of the “coulda, woulda, shoulda’s” in your life. Most of those posts concerned making good decisions in life. Most of those decisions involve being able to distinguish good from bad, right from wrong or maybe constructive vs. destructive behavior.
it rather starkly when he said – “you either believe or you don’t believe, there ain’t no in between.”
So it is in life; you either walk with God or you walk alone. You may both turn to God for help with your decisions, and trust in the direction that He takes you; or you have nothing to turn to for help and find no happiness in your decisions, no matter how things turn out. In the end, will you be looking back and saying, “I wish I had found God in my life”, or will you be saying “I’m glad that I had God in my life to guide me?”
to things and events. Trying to maintain the delusion that we are in control just causes frustration, anger and self-destructive depression.
always go the way that God intended. Sometimes we have to step back from things and try to discern the lesson or good that can come from the outcome.
painful if you turn to him early. It’s not really that God misses lots of opportunities to be early, it’s usually that we don’t turn to Him until it’s almost too late. So, pray early and pray often. God is standing by to answer.
the end of winter and the arrival of Spring. In a larger sense, it is a metaphor for the celebration of life. As Hartley pointed out, children seem to find fun in life no matter what is going on around them. One can see that in the occasional news stories of children finding a way to play in the midst of war-torn countries. For them life is always fun, bright, colorful and full of things to discover.
We begin to believe that we can control things, manipulate things and decide outcomes to events and not to trust that God is in control. Many may substitute something new in place of the Maypole – success in business with promotions and more money – and dance around those goals in the belief that having more of everything will bring happiness.
working out for you? Don’t play the fool; return to the only true thing that you need to center your life around. Dance around God and be happy again, as if you were a child.
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