{"id":4653,"date":"2025-05-27T08:31:34","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T12:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4653"},"modified":"2025-05-27T08:31:34","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T12:31:34","slug":"who-i-really-am","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/27\/who-i-really-am\/","title":{"rendered":"Who I Really Am"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

Some people just have a way with words.

That includes Muhammad Ali, whose wit, wisdom, and sheer audacity place him near the top of any list of the most \u201cquotable people\u201d in the English language.

There wasn\u2019t much in his childhood to presage such fame. Ali, who was born Cassius Clay, was the son of a billboard painter and domestic helper in Louisville, Kentucky. He struggled to read and write because of dyslexia.

At the age of 12, he became furious when someone stole his bike. He vowed to \u201cwhup\u201d whoever was responsible. Providentially, the police officer who processed the theft was Joe E. Martin, who also happened to be a boxing coach. If Clay intended to start a fight, Martin suggested he ought to learn how to box.

What followed was history\u2019s most spectacular pugilistic career.

Ali was far more than a champion in the ring. He became an ardent social activist and global icon. In the year 2000, Sports Illustrated<\/em> named him Sportsman of the Century.

Along the way he helped pioneer the kind of \u201cspoken word poetry\u201d that gave birth to hip hop.

Some of his declarations sprang from trash-talking his boxing opponents. \u201cFloat like a butterfly, sting like a bee, you can\u2019t hit what your eyes don\u2019t see.\u201d Then there\u2019s, \u201cIf you even dream of beating me you\u2019d better wake up and apologize.\u201d

It may be apocryphal, but I\u2019ve always loved Ali\u2019s conversation with a flight attendant who insisted that he fasten his seat belt. \u201cSuperman don\u2019t need no seat belt,\u201d he announced, loudly enough for others to hear. \u201cSuperman don\u2019t need no airplane,\u201d retorted the flight attendant. As the story is usually told, the champ fastened his belt.

With regard to perseverance, he noted, \u201cIt isn\u2019t the mountains ahead that wear you down. It\u2019s the pebble in your shoe.\u201d

He added, \u201cImpossible is just a word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they\u2019ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It\u2019s an opinion. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.\u201d

Ali was certain that all of us are called to outward-focused lives: \u201cService to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.\u201d

And he had an unyielding opinion about the priority of personal growth: \u201cA man who views the world the same at 50 as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.\u201d

Finally, \u201cI am the greatest. I said that even before I knew I was.\u201d\u00a0

Before we dismiss that last line as a childish boast, we should note how close it comes to an important strain of teaching in the New Testament.

All of us are tempted to believe certain fictions about our own lives. The late Catholic devotional writer Henri Nouwen famously presented what he called The Five Lies of Identity:

I am what I have.<\/strong>

If that’s true, what happens if you fail to wrap your hands around the best things in life?\u00a0 And what happens when all of your stuff inevitably begins to slip through your fingers?\u00a0\u00a0

I am what I do.<\/strong>

This is one of those unyielding lies at the heart of our show-me-your-resume culture.\u00a0If we buy into it, then losing a job or experiencing the end of a career can feel devastating.\u00a0Who am I now?\u00a0\u00a0

I am what other people say or think of me.<\/strong>

Believing the verdicts of co-workers, neighbors, social media followers – and even those who have pledged their love to us – is to risk surrendering our identity to people who cannot possibly know the depths of who we really are.

I am nothing more than my worst moment.<\/strong>

If so, then you will be tortured all your life by your biggest blunder.\u00a0You may have made a grievous mistake.\u00a0But that doesn’t mean that you,<\/u><\/em> at the center of your being, are a grievous mistake.\u00a0\u00a0

I am nothing less than my best moment.<\/strong>

At the other end of the spectrum, you are not the highlight reel of your life that you post on social media.

If we routinely misunderstand our own identity and value, how can we ever know what it is?\u00a0 St. Francis of Assisi declared, “I am who I am in the sight of God.\u00a0Nothing more, nothing less.”\u00a0\u00a0

How do we know who we are in the sight of God?

If you have trusted your life to Christ, Romans 8 says that you are forgiven, and free from condemnation (vs. 1,2); that all things in your life are working together for good (v. 28); and that you cannot be separated from God\u2019s love (vs.37-39).\u00a0God says in Philippians that he is going to finish what he has started in your life (1:6).\u00a0\u00a0You are not worthless, inadequate, helpless, or hopeless, since Scripture makes it clear that you are God\u2019s temple (I Corinthians 3:16); that you are God\u2019s co-worker in the kingdom (2 Corinthians 5:17-21); and that you may approach God with absolute freedom and confidence (Ephesians 3:12).

All of this has nothing to do with how you feel right now. It has everything to do with what God <\/em>says about you right now.

Spiritual growth is the process of gradually replacing the broken ideas we\u2019ve always assumed to be true with the Real Story about God, the world, and our own lives.

It doesn\u2019t happen all at once. Sometimes we go two steps forward and three steps back.

But Muhammad Ali was definitely on to something when he said, \u201cI am the greatest. I said that even before I knew I was.\u201d If we take God at his word, we can declare, \u201cI am God\u2019s dearly loved child\u201d \u2013 and start living<\/em>as if that\u2019s true<\/em> \u2013 even before we \u201cknow,\u201d in the depths of our souls, the fullness of what that even means.

The odds are pretty good you\u2019ll never become a world champion at anything, let alone a global icon.

But you can get this one thing right:

You don\u2019t have to waste 30 years of your life believing the same old lies about who you really are.<\/em>
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here Some people just have a way with words. That includes Muhammad Ali, whose wit, wisdom, and sheer audacity place him near the top of any list of the most \u201cquotable people\u201d in the English language. There wasn\u2019t much in his childhood to presage such fame. Ali, who was born Cassius Clay,… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4654,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[502,929],"class_list":["post-4653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-identity","tag-muhammad-ali"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4653"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4655,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4653\/revisions\/4655"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}