Louie Giglio - I Am Not But I Know I Am: Welcome to the Story of God

I A M N OT BUT I K NOW I A M
P UBLISHED BY M ULTNOMAH B OOKS
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Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica Inc.TM Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. Scripture quotations marked ( ESV ) are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked ( MSG ) are taken from The Message by Eugene H. Peterson. Copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked ( NASB ) are taken from the New American Standard Bible. Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org). Scripture quotations marked ( NKJV ) are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Copyright 2005, 2012 by Louie Giglio

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.

M ULTNOMAH and its mountain colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Giglio, Louie.
I am not but I know I Am : welcome to the story of God / Louie Giglio. Rev. ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-56339-2
1. Spirituality. I. Title.
BV4501.3.G54 2012
248dc23

2012029296

v3.1_r2

To the beautiful memory and lasting legacy
of my mom, Martha Jeane Giglio.

Welcome to the book with the quirky titleI Am Not but I Know I AM. If youre like most people, you looked at the words on the cover once or twice (or more) before (a) the meaning settled on you, or (b) out of curiosity you picked up the book to figure out what in the world this seemingly contradictory title is all about. Thankfully, you didnt (c) become so confused that you quietly put the book down (or passed it by on your e-book store) and went on your way.

Im really glad you made it this far because I believe that soon this crazy title will be making perfect sense to you. And I hope that the truth it represents will soon be flooding your heart with a God-sized dose of rest and meaning, redefining who you are in the very best way. I can only pray that happens in you, because it was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

As for the offbeat title, the thought of it hit me midstream a few years back as I was speaking to a conference of youth leaders from across America. I was sharing what I think is one of the most gripping scenes in Scripture, the account where God meets Moses at the burning bush. As the encounter unfolds, God calls Moses by name and, at Mosess request, reveals His name to humankind for the very first time that we know of. In this amazing divine exchange, God discloses that His name is, in fact, a little offbeat as well, announcing that His name is I AM WHO I AM.

Simply, it means God exists. God is. God has been, He is in this moment, and He always will beGod!

The point I was trying to get across in my talk is that God is everything we need.

We have already achieved
the greatest heights
because we know I AM.

Yet, while I was speaking, I started having a minirevelation of my own. If Gods name is I AM WHO I AM, as He confided to Moses, then my name must be I am not. After all, by the nature of the name and title I AM, the rest of us must be called something elseand that something is I am not I AM, or in short, I am not.

To say it differently, Gods name is I have always been and always will be God, and my name is I have never been and never will be God. My name is I am not.

Hmm. Whats so good about this news? you may be asking. After all, many of us have spent our lives trying to do more, gain more, become more influential, get ahead, and lead the way. The message of I am not seemingly comes as an affront to our pursuit of being all we can be and experiencing the very best we can achieve. Yet, the fact that our names are I am not does not require us to put ourselves down, but rather to embrace the fact that we have already achieved the greatest heights because we know I AM.

Once while I was sharing this message with a friend who was a promising professional athlete, he questioned how this I am not way of thinking fit with his goals in the competitive arena. He was struggling with the notion that he was supposed to embrace his smallness, when in fact his sporting role required him to be as big and strong as possible and hopefully to be tougher, smarter, and faster than the next guy.

You may feel the same way. You have huge dreams and giant goals, and what fuels you on the journey is the belief that you can do more, achieve more, be more! In fact, in the cultural space you occupy you may have to scratch and claw to stay in the game or to be taken seriously at all.

I went on to share with my young athlete friend that coming to terms with the idea that we are each I am not does not mean relinquishing our dreams, setting aside our competitive desires, or

As we will soon discover, admitting we are not Godnot in control, not running anything, not responsible for everyones well-being, not the solution for everything and everyone, not at the center of all thingsdoesnt belittle us; it frees us. For as small as we may be, the truth is we are known and prized by the God of all creation. He knows our name, and we know His. We have been invited into a personal relationship with the infinite I AM WHO I AM. What can we ever gain or accomplish that could compete with knowing the Maker and Sustainer of the world on a first-name basis? What on our rsums eclipses the fact that we walk with God?

And how does this I am not but I know I AM message change our everyday lives?

The pages that follow are an assault on two of the archenemies of the heart, two things I believe all of us wrestle with on some level: stress and meaninglessness. The first, stress, gets a stranglehold on us when we move through life feeling like everything (every decision, every answer, every provision, every protection) rests on our shoulders. If we, knowingly or unknowingly, view ourselves as the source of all things for all people, we slowly lose peace of mind and find ourselves staring at the ceiling late into the night trying to figure out how to hold it all together and/or medicating ourselves just to make it through the day.