While one cannot begrudge the third Mrs Johnson and her husband every happiness, one’s heart surely goes out to all who have been refused permission to marry in church because they were divorced. It’s not unlike the situation surrounding the PM’s former advisor’s trip to Barnard Castle when the rest of us couldn’t even go down the road – although one has to credit his belated apology.
There will always be times when George Orwell’s famous phrase rings so very true: ‘All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.’
We’ve all met people who are at pains to make sure we know how important they are, I expect: be they a manager, club secretary or church flower arranger. You know the type: the self-made man who worships his own creator… ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ they ask silently…
Indeed, I can play those cards myself if I wished. I’ve got two websites and published two books (and writing two more). MBE and MSc (Distinction). I founded and developed an international mental health initiative and am a lay minister… that type of thing. But does that make me important?
Or is it that I am a husband and father: those aspects are important to me (indeed, more so) and they are important to my wife and children. They are part of who I am.
Fact is, we often describe someone as important because of what they do rather than because of who they are.
The same can be true about how we measure our own sense of importance. How many times do we hear people say ‘I’m not important enough for…’
We live with an uncomfortable paradox – at times, we can be minded to think we are more important than we actually are and yet we are also more important than we think.
The Dutch priest and writer, Henri Nouwen wrote: ‘You are not what you do, although you do a lot. You are not what you have collected in terms of friendships and connections, although you might have many. You are not the popularity that you have received. You are not the success of your work. You are not what people say about you, whether they speak well or whether they speak poorly about you. All these things that keep you quite busy, quite occupied, and often quite preoccupied are not telling the truth about who you are.’
The disciple John, generally acknowledged to be the author of John’s Gospel also wrote three letters in the New Testament. If you are in any doubt about how important you really are then read these astonishing words:
‘See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.’ (1 John 3:1)
The intimacy of this truth is staggering: ‘See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.’
And that is what we are: children of God.
And that is what you are: A child of God.
A child of God.
Loved by God.
For who you are.
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