Do you know who you are -- uniquely endowed with gifts and talents from the God who created you?

Or do you allow yourself to be defined -- by parents' expectations (even if those parents are long dead); or by the successes and failures of your work; or by others' opinions of you, whether you are affirmed by them or negatively criticized?

In my reading this morning, I came across some remarkable lines. A writer named Kent Ira Groff, draws this from the health that Jesus models for us:

"'What would Jesus do?' has become a popular slogan. But the focus is on the wrong thing, on the do. It needs to be translated, 'What would Jesus be doing?'

"What would Jesus be? Presence, power, peace; Any lasting action in the world needs to come from the deep center of wholeness, or it will be so much chaff. Jesus modeled this by a continual pattern of retreat and involvement, solitude and community.

"What would Jesus be doing? What Jesus would be about would flow from who he is. And he would be about loving, listening, learning, laughing -- and leaving us to continue what he began to do and teach (Acts 1:1). That is what we need to be about, so that when we leave we will have empowered others not just to do something, but to be the presence of Christ."