IDENTITY
“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”
Who are you?
I never really asked myself that outright before. I mean to say, I’ve avoided the truth of who I was until that truth no longer felt condemning —and that was a fairly recent reckoning.
The truth is, everything we are and all that we aren’t play into the possibilities of our lives. The much more difficult to swallow truth is that it doesn’t matter who you are if you don’t actually believe it.
Why wouldn’t we believe who we are?
Because we still think that it matters more than it does and we act like it matters less than it does.
Let me explain. We fixate on who we are; our titles, our interests, our resumes, what our instagram profiles says about the kind of vibe we are —we think it all matters. Then when it comes down to feeling content and worthy, nothing we’ve done, nothing we’ve accrued, nothing we’ve accomplished seems to matter. We become nothing to ourselves.
I’ve been there and it’s such an empty place to be. It feels how the onset of food poisoning feels. I’ve had food poisoning all of two times in my life and the second time was a lot less drastic because of the suffering of the first. I woke up from a nap feeling hungry and bloated. It made no sense. I wanted to eat but I could feel the cereal I had before swirling around in my stomach, undigested. The rest was a violent path to recovery that I’ll spare you all the details of. The second time, I felt that same bloated emptiness and before I could process what I had eaten or where it came from, I took a couple of activated charcoal capsules. The symptoms subsided and I was fine.
The bouts of identity crises felt the same as the onset of food poisoning. It would come so quickly after some award was received or some project was complete. There was that lift from accomplishment that should have filled me. There was no way I should’ve felt hungry right after that— or empty, rather.
The other times when I felt my existentialism was at its worst was anytime someone new came into my life. It’s like on social media when someone you don’t expect likes your post or views your story, then you feel the need to reread or rewatch in an effort to see it from their perspective. Then you begin to wonder what they thought of it— what they think of you.
Having someone new enter my life brought about those same thoughts— if it was someone that I actually thought something of and even then, mostly the someones that I thought I might be less than platonically interested in. I’d wonder what they thought of the things I’ve said and done. I’d reread text threads to annotate their responses from different perspectives and none of the confidence I felt in who I was had any power in those moments of uncertainty.
My deep dive into my identity happened for many reasons but the most compelling was the need to not feel undone whenever the seasons of my life changed. Before, I was because of what I did and what it spoke on my behalf. Now, when I’m not being in purpose on purpose, I simply am and that has come to be enough for me.
I am because I was created and as far as identity goes, that’s enough. I was reminded of Moses’s encounter with God in Exodus 3:14 and it all began to add up. If I was created in the image and likeness of God and “I am” was enough of an introduction for God, then my being should be enough for me. It doesn’t stop me from doing and becoming but it does take the pressure off.
This realization had many implications but the shift that took place in my dating expectations has by far been one of the best things to happen to me.
What happens when you stop performing for the attention of others? What happens when you find comfort in your divinely refined process? What happens when you begin to trust the good work that God began in you and his faithfulness to complete it? Who do you become when you trust that what God has for you is greater than anything you could conform to secure in your own strength?
What I got was a sense of security and standards that are fortified in faith. An identity rooted in faith is not easily shaken. When you believe that you are a child of God, you treat yourself like it. You seek to treat others like it and you become particular about the way you’re seen by the people who want to be in your life. Not in the same way as before when you wanted to control people’s perceptions of you but in the way that allows you to say, thank you, next to those who don’t see you the way God sees you.
You stop feeling rushed because you believe that God redeems the time. You experience the peace that passes understanding and you trust the Spirit of God to help you in all the ways that you need help maintaining the discipline required to wait. You focus on being about your Father’s business and you have a knowing in your heart that you will see the glory of the Lord at work in your life on this side of eternity.
You’re presented with the same feelings you felt before but you’re aware of the presence of the Spirit of God that enables you to respond to those feelings differently. You know you aren’t bound to the mistakes that you used to make because you’ve been redeemed and that becomes part of your I am.
Whether you’ve acknowledged it or not, you were created by the I Am which means you are. That should mean something and when it begins to mean something, it changes the way you exist, how you love and the love you accept. More on that next week.
So… who are you? If you’re still not sure, keep reading.
PRAYER
God, I believe that I was created in your image and likeness. I believe that means that there are things available to me that I haven’t been utilizing. If you made me like you that means that getting to know you will help me to know myself better too. I wanna know me. I want to know you too. Show me who I am through the lens of who you are. I want to experience the best version of myself here on this earth. I want to experience the kind of peace that you want me to have. I want to experience the kind of joy that you want me to have. I want to experience the kind of love that you want me to have and I can’t do any of that from the same mental and emotional capacity that I’ve been utilizing all my life. Renew me in every area. Show me what you want for me— what you want from me. I want to be new and I want to act like it. Help me. In Jesus’s name, Amen.
REFLECT
What are some of the things that you’ve labeled yourself? List them. Who would you be without the better things you’ve done/ become? Who would you be without the worst? Who would you like to be at the core of yourself, without the help of jobs/ careers, friendships, hobbies, awards, etc.? Write it all down. Affirm the identity that allows you to feel worthy when the dust settles and the luster fades.