I AM Statements

So our purpose is to reach people for Jesus. Our strategy is relationships. First relationships in here, then relationships out there. Our role, and here comes the question, who am I? Who are you? What is my role? What has God created you to be, me to be, us to be? Yes, we're all children of God. But who are you? God has made you unique and gifted you in a special way for the precise purpose for which he needs you. Who are you? As a chaplain, I work at two state schools, and a mother came in with her son, and she said— I had already been talking to him, so I knew what he'd been doing. He had been playing a game with his friends where basically they were dacking girls. Which if you don't know what that is, it's basically pulling their pants down. It's very inappropriate. And primary school, everyone learns something at some time. And so he— his teacher, the principal, everyone had talked to him and his friends about it, and they all knew it was wrong. But his mom was concerned because when she was in here chatting with me and him, she said, "This is not like him. He is not like that at all. But when he's with certain friends, he wants them to like him." And so he does things that he really doesn't want to do, but he does them anyway because he wants to fit in. He wants to be cool. He wants not to stand out and be made fun of. And so then she said to me, can you give him some advice, something he can practice or take home or something that can help him when he gets into that situation where he's being tempted to not lower his guard, to be strong. And it's a state school system, so I can't say, well, let me tell you about something from the Bible. And so what God did for me right then, and it was— I'd never used this phrase before, but he just— it's like he just downloaded a whole video into my head, or a whole process. He just said, I am statements. And I was like, I just said it. I said, you know what, I think it would be really good for you and mom to make some I am statements. And he said, "What are I am statements?" And I said, "I am statements are statements of who you are no matter what, who you are inside." I said, "Who do you know about yourself that you wish you were always this way?" And he said, "Kind." And I said, "Okay, there's your I am kind." I said, "Try to come up with 3." And I don't want you to do it now. I want you to go away with Mom, and I want you to come up with 3 I am statements, and I want you to write them down on a piece of paper. And then when you get in bed at night, once your feet lift the floor, you read that piece of paper out loud to yourself. When you wake up in the morning and you swivel around and your feet are hovering above the floor and you're almost gonna get up, read that piece of paper to yourself. And then take it with you, and as you're eating meals— breakfast, lunch, dinner— read it to yourself. And if your friends ask you what it is, you say, "These are my 'I am' statements. Don't you have any?" And then when you've read those a few times, You'll have them memorized and you won't need to take the piece of paper around you with you all the time. But what will happen is that at some point one of them will pop into your head and it will help you to make a good decision. That was Tuesday. And the next— oh no, it was Monday because I see him every Monday. The next Monday he came in for his session and I said, so did you write your I am statements? Yes, I did. Mom and I did. And I said, what did you write? I am kind. I am respectful. And I am generous. And I said, that's very good. I would like to be all those things. And then I just asked, I thought it's probably not happened yet, but I said, have you had any of them come to mind when you needed them? He said, yes, yesterday playing football. And I said, oh, you're on a footy team? He said, yeah, I love footy. I said, what happened? He said, well, we were running down the field and the ball bounced funny and it hit a kid in the face, but my teammate caught the ball and he kept running, so everyone was chasing him, but I looked at the boy who the ball had hit in the face and I saw blood coming down his face. And I stopped and I went over and I helped him. I said, "I'll walk you over to your sideline." And I walked him over to the sideline. And as I was walking, it just popped in my head, "I am kind." And I said, "Wow, that worked so fast." And when we look at the Bible in Deuteronomy 6:4-9, it says— basically what's happened is God has given the second the end of their 40 years in the desert. God's given them the Ten Commandments again, but this time he's spoken it. And they've come to God and said, can you please, Moses, can you go tell God his voice is too scary for us? Have him speak to you, and we will listen to you. Whatever you say, we will do. And God agrees to this. And he says, on one condition. And his condition is in Deuteronomy 6:4-9. He says this. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commands that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands, bind them on your foreheads, write them on the doorframes of your houses and your gates.' God's statements are taught through relationships. And in— I don't know if you picked it up in the idea of telling him, "As you go to bed and as you rise and as you eat," that's this in layman's terms. It's just go and do it rather than saying where it came from. I just gave it to him. And he loved it. And it changed him. It helped his little heart recognize, "I am a good person and I want to be this."