Articles by Paul Scanlon

One of the greatest discoveries you will ever make is that life responds to who you are not what you do. In a world driven by getting, having and achieving, this discovery will at least improve the quality of your life, and at best save you from the tyranny of trying to do more whilst becoming less.

We are human beings not human doings but generally we work far harder on our doing than our being. The truth is God cannot do anything through your life that is bigger than who you already are. The miracle through us will never be bigger than the miracle in us. Throughout history God has always concentrated on getting the ‘who’ right before releasing people to ‘do’ the task in question. The silences of church history were prolonged periods during which God had no ‘who’ through which to ‘do’ what was in his heart to accomplish. God has always worked through people and the calibre of those people has always had a direct effect on their achievements for him within their generation. The children of Israel wandered around in circles for forty years when the final part of their journey should only have taken eleven days.1 The reality is that whether it takes forty years or eleven days to achieve something for God, he doesn’t decide it, we do.

When the twelve spies returned from their exploration of Canaan, ten gave a negative and fearful report and two of them, Joshua and Caleb, gave a positive faith-filled report:
‘They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.”

Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”
But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”’2

How can two people looking at exactly the same things have such completely different reports? The answer is because we don’t see life according to what it is but according to who we are. Those who saw themselves as grasshoppers saw everything else from that perspective; everything and everyone seemed bigger and better than them. Those ten spies even went beyond how they saw themselves and imagined how the enemy viewed them. When they said ‘we seemed like grasshoppers to them’ they were beginning to live their lives according to what they thought other people were thinking about them. When we cross the line into this twilight zone of projecting who we are into the minds of others and then behaving accordingly, life gets really complicated. Sadly, this complex and fearful way of living is commonly found where people fail to understand that life is not about what others do, but who we are.

The Way We See The Problem Is The Problem

The way we see our problems is the real problem. Two people facing the same problem will respond in two totally different ways because we approach problems based on who we are not what the problem is. Some people are constantly beaten by the same problem but a closer inspection usually reveals that it wasn’t actually the problem that beat them, it was the way they perceived and handled the problem. In other words, they beat themselves! Many are wiped out by financial, relational or emotional problems, but the truth is that all around us there are people facing the same issues who are not wiped out by them.

It is a major mistake to think that if we just work hard enough on solving a particular problem, we will inevitably progress. We like to concentrate on managing the problem, reducing the problem and working around the problem, rather than growing ourselves. But to solve the problem we often have to work on ourselves first.
Some people throw petrol on a problem, others water; some bring instant clarity to a problem, some deepen the confusion; some over react and do their ‘drama queen’ thing, others stay calm and think things through carefully. My point is that the real problem is who we are, not what the problem is. The problem can’t get any bigger but you can, so get to work on yourself and you’ll be amazed by how your perspective of the problem changes.

Who You Are And Problem Solving

Jesus told two stories, each of which gave insight into how people perceived life and therefore responded to it. The parable of The Talents tells us that the servant who buried his talent did so because he was a fearful person. He said to the master, ‘I was afraid, so I hid your talent in the ground.’3 Who he was, caused him to perceive what the master saw as an opportunity, as a threat. He saw the whole situation according to the fearful person he was, rather than according to what the master asked him to do, and that’s what defeated him.
On the other hand Jesus told the story of The Shrewd Manager who, when presented with the problem of unemployment, responded from who he was by lining up some new options for his future.4 Jesus commended him for his ability to survive by being creative and proactive in the face of his problems. He was not endorsing his corruption but his problem solving ability. He overcame his problem because of who he was.
This principle becomes all the more important when we realize that our ability to solve problems is at the core of our capacity to keep growing. Our ability to solve any problem is all to do with who we are.

Who You Are And Receiving Correction

Another fundamental area affected by this issue is our ability to receive correction. People respond to correction based on who they are not what the correction is. Proverbs tells us, ‘Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult, whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse. Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you. Rebuke a wise man and he will love you. Instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still, teach a righteous man and he will add to his learning.’5

In other words, don’t waste your time trying to help some people because you will be up against who they are which will cancel out what you were trying to do for them. Not only will their unteachable life resist your help, they will resent you and take offence that you tried to help them at all. This becomes all the more apparent when you think of the times you have consistently tried to help certain people but to no avail. We then begin to blame ourselves for not doing more when, all along, the issue wasn’t our doing but their being. People who receive lots of help leave churches still saying, ‘nobody helped me in that church.’ Pastors and church members alike can feel bad about such people and fall into the trap of trying to do even more to keep them happy, not realizing that it’s not about what you did but who they are. It’s impossible to help an unteachable person.

You can give the same great advice to two people facing a similar situation and one will love you for it and one will hate you for it. Why? Because the issue was not in your advice but in who they were. Parents soon discover that one child’s response to correction and wisdom is totally different to another in the same family, and on the same issue. The truth is we are only getting as much help as we attract, not as much help as we think we deserve.

Who You Are And Promotion

Our churches will become who we are not what we do. We can teach passionately on measles but if we’ve got chicken pox, that is what they will catch. People catch who we are not what we do or who we say we are. Worship leading is what Lucifer originally did, but rebellious, proud and divisive is who he was. Handling the finances was what Judas did, but a deceitful and scheming betrayer is who he was. Sadly, we turn many a modern day Lucifer and Judas loose in the church based on what they do without really knowing who they are. We choose and empower people based on what they do and then get into trouble later on, when who they really are comes out. Just because someone is an accountant, it does not necessarily make them a good trustee of the church. A school teacher doesn’t automatically make a good spiritual teacher. A company executive doesn’t necessarily make a good church leader. People are not what they do but who they are.

Throughout history God has shocked the world by his choice of people because, ‘man looks at the outward but God looks at the heart.’6 God looks for who not what. So a shepherd boy can become a giant killer because God saw that what David did was not who he was. Meanwhile those like Saul, who live by doing instead of being, are trying to make the ‘David’ God has chosen do it their way, insisting that he is insufficient in himself; he needs to ‘put their armour on’ and do it their way.7 The whole David and Goliath story is one of David’s being triumphing over everyone else’s doing, because for all their doing they were getting deeper into trouble.

Who You Are And Doing Things

At the core of crossing our church over into the new church we have become, was the need for me to take off everything that others had smothered me with. Their ideas of what I needed, how I should live and what I should do had to be peeled off my life. Though well meaning, much of this help actually became a hindrance because their way of doing things was ultimately stifling who I really was. If you don’t do life your way, in accordance with who you really are, then you will be driven by doing things to keep other people happy, things that you can never personally enjoy.
Many are striving to get more and more without realizing that until they change who they are, what they do have will never help them. Sadly, many of the world’s rich and famous have everything but battle daily with drug, alcohol or sexual addictions. A movie star is what he does, but a self-destructive alcoholic is who he is. The answer isn’t just to drink less but to become more.

Who You Are Is What Attracts

In life we attract who and what we are not what we have and do. Put twenty people in the same house for a week and all the same types of people will find each other. The negative will find the negative, the comedians the comedians, and the moody gossipy types will all find each other. This mutual attraction isn’t based on what people do but who they are. Ultimately the strongest bond between people isn’t background, occupation, culture, colour, religion or even faith, but who they are. This is a law in creation and first seen in the Genesis account:
‘And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.’8
Here we have three laws: the law of limitation, the law of attraction and the law of reproduction. First God placed a creational limit upon all life in that each would be limited to it’s own kind. So, once a monkey, always a monkey. Secondly, that each creature would only be attracted to its own kind. And thirdly from these flow the law of reproduction. So a giraffe can’t reproduce a gazelle, nor a monkey a man, because it is impossible for any ‘kind’ to cross these creational boundaries. Therefore written into the act of creation is the fundamental principle that you can only attract to yourself on the basis of who you are and not on what you do, say, or falsely try to be.

Our Kind Produces Our Kin

Who we are therefore determines who we do life with; our ‘kind’ determines our kin. To change our kin we must therefore change our kind, we must become the kind of person God really wants us to be. The truth is that the law of mutual attraction is already working in your life; there isn’t anyone in your world you didn’t draw there. Please don’t waste your days saying, ‘how did these people get into my life?’ or ‘how did all this stuff finish up happening in my world?’ You attracted those people and all the baggage that they brought with them. They are, whether you like it or not, your kind. If this law can work negatively it can also work positively. So if we can change who we are we will also change who enters and exits our world.

Where You Are Is Not Who You Are

Joseph prospered in prison. Why? Because prison was where he was but a criminal wasn’t who he was.9 David wasn’t even invited to where the ‘pick a king’ party took place, but it didn’t matter because he was the King.10

Stop striving to get yourself into the right place, at the right time, to get somewhere you think you need to be and just concentrate on being the right person. Unemployed may be where you are but it is not who you are. Financially broke may be where you are right now, but it’s not who you are. Sick may be where you are but it is not who you are. Your address in what’s regarded as a bad part of town may be where you are but it is not who you are. Don’t ever allow where you are to dictate to you who you are.

The will of God for your life is not primarily attached to places or things, it’s attached to you. Once you realize this you are delivered from the tyranny of doubt that plagues most Christians as they agonize about ‘which option before them is the will of God?’ Is it this place or that? Is it this job or the other? The answer is ‘neither’ because the blessing is not attached to the place or the job but to the person – to you! You can ‘be blessed in the city and blessed in the country’ because the blessing isn’t in one place or the other, it is in you.11 People often say to me, ‘if you want to build a great church you should really move to London.’ This advice comes from people who think that God is a prisoner of geography. Our churches are not thriving or failing because of where we are but who we are.

Everything you need in life is waiting for you to become the kind of person it needs you to be before it can enter your life. Who you are is governing what you do, what you have and where you go. So let’s get busy growing the real you!

1 Deuteronomy 1:2
2 Numbers 13:26-33
3 Matthew 25:25
4 Luke 16:3-9
5 Proverbs 9:7-9
6 1 Samuel 16:7
7 1 Samuel 17:38
8 Genesis 1:24-25
9 Genesis 39:21
10 1 Samuel 16:10-11
11 Deuteronomy 28:1