Let Me be Human

I love to listen to Jason Mraz. One of his songs entitled “Only Human” have a chorus that goes like this:

'Cause we're only human

Yes we are, only human

If it's our only excuse do you think we'll keep on being only human

Yes we are, only human, only human, so far, so far”

It is normal to hear people say (or you say) “I’m only human”. What make me afraid about this statement is that we try to give ourselves excuses like that so that we can get ourselves off the hook instead of doing our best. People, like you and me, are trying to push ourselves beyond our limits or we may become terribly anxious.

“Perhaps the most fundamental distortion in our self-image occurs when we find it difficult to see ourselves as human”, writes Juanita Ryan. For some reasons, we may find ourselves functioning as if we were either super-human (like gifted men and women in TV series ‘Heroes’) or sub-human (‘less than human’ like ancient apes in the Animal Discovery Channel). Like Jason Mraz, we fear what will happen if we are ‘only human’. We may not consciously think that we are super-human, but we often try to act that way in order to cover our weaknesses and our neediness. We may not consciously think that we are sub-human, but we may feel that way about ourselves when we cannot escape our fallen-humanness (that’s my word, I just created it) and our dependency. To be human, for us, is to be ‘someone’ we would rather avoid. We don’t like our weaknesses, our neediness, our fallen-humanness and/or our dependency.

So what we try to do? Consciously or unconsciously, we defend ourselves against our fears (above) by trying to be God. But, excuse me, we are not God. There is only one God. God is God. “The more we are able to embrace this most fundamental of realities – that we are creatures and God is our Creator”, write Juanita Ryan, “the freer our lives can become”.

I don’t know about you, but for me, it is a privilege, wonderful and joyful to be a creature. Want to know why? Well, creatures are not responsible for or in charge of things over which they have no power or control. God is responsible for His creatures, just let Him be (Read Matthew 6:25-34). Relax – let God be God. And let ourselves be God’s children, that’s more like it. Jason Mraz may have his own point by saying ‘We are only human’, but who is Jason? Human, like you and I. Want to hear what God is saying? Read Psalm 100;

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.

Worship the Lord with gladness;

come before him with joyful songs.

Know that the Lord is God.

It is he who made us, and we are his;

we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving

and his courts with praise;

give thanks to him and praise his name.

For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;

his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Let God be God. Let ourselves be God's children

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.