4.1 Discussion: You Call Me
Getting Started
We are known to ourselves and others by many names and faces, the faces of our “student selves,” our “parent selves,” our “friend selves,” and even our “alone selves.” Have you ever thought about what your “child-of-God self” is like? What are you like when it is only you and God? What are you like when all is stripped away and the many faces and masks have been laid to rest? It may very well be that we are never so beautiful as when we are in the presence of our Lord, vulnerable, broken, needing, and sometimes even afraid. It is in these moments when we are our most real, our most authentic and genuine selves. There is so much beauty in this type of vulnerability.
Upon successful completion of the course material, you will be able to:
· Identify three key aspects about yourself by which God “calls you.”
Resources
· Bible
· Video: You Call Me
Background Information
Consider this passage of scripture in John, wherein Jesus meets the Samaritan woman drawing water from a deep well.
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
“I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
John 4:7–18
Do you remember what the Samaritan woman told others about her encounter with Jesus? She was not upset that he saw all her flaws and sins! Quite the contrary—she was excited that the Messiah, the Chosen One, HAD seen her!
Overjoyed, she left her water jar and went back into town to urge her neighbors, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”
John 4:29
So often we try to hide our true selves from one another and even from ourselves. But Jesus sees us. Jesus knows us. It isn’t that He “loves us anyway.” He loves us.
He loves us . . . period.
Here is a devotional challenge: Find a quiet place away from all the noise and hubbub of the world. Pray, praise, talk, laugh . . . with God. Let Him see you. Allow yourself to KNOW that He sees you. What does this experience feel like? Is it healing? Is it frightening?
Instructions
1. Spend time (at least 15 minutes) alone with God.
2. Review the video,
You Call Me
.
3. Navigate to the Discussion page and respond to the following prompts:
a. What was it like to be alone with God? What was it like to be you, just you?
b. How is the genuine you different from or similar to the public you that others typically see?
4. Your postings should also:
a. Be well developed by providing clear answers with evidence of critical thinking.
b. Add greater depth to the discussion by introducing new ideas.
