What I learned from Watching The Lion King a Bajillion Times with My Daughter

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Remember Who You Are

We raised our oldest daughter, Megan, in the dark ages of the early 90s. This was a time before flat screen TVs and DVD players in cars. It was awful, I tell you!

And home was no better. The TV was massive and weighed a ton and we still used VHS tapes and our old VCR. One of the first things Megan learned to do was toddle over to the TV, click “stop,” “rewind,” and “play” on the VCR and watch The Lion King over and over again.

So I know all the songs. I know “I Just Can’t Wait to be King,” “Hakuna Matata,” and all the others! I can belt them out with the best of them!

And I remember those words Mufasa spoke to Simba from beyond his grave. “Remember who you are.” I must have heard those words thousands of times and I’ve found myself trying to repeat them with James Earl Jones’ rich baritone. Remember . . . Remember . . .

I think those words are important to all of us–whether we happen to be feline royalty or not. There are times when we simply forget who we are, and we forget whose we are.

In Ephesians 1, Paul opens his letter with a picture of the identity of the believer. In that chapter he tells us, among other things:

You are blessed

You are chosen

You are adopted

You are redeemed

You are forgiven

It’s easy for us to get down on ourselves. It’s easy to let our failures and hurts overwhelm us. Soon we stop believing in who God says we are and instead believe our hurts define us.

But God calls again and again, “Remember who you are.” And he also calls, “Remember whose you are.”

If you’re in a place where you’ve been so overwhelmed by the darkness in your life that you’ve lost sight of who you are, check out what God says about you in Ephesians 1. And check out my message from Sunday.

Remember who you are!