Discovering Who I Am

Posts Tagged ‘Identity’

What do you believe qualifies you for the love of God?
When things go wrong in your life, is your first reaction to wonder why God let it happen? Do you become introspective to see what you have done wrong? When you pray, do you find yourself going through a mental checklist of successes and sins to determine if God will answer your prayer?

If we ask ourselves the wrong questions, we end up like Adam and Eve: alienate from God through the fear and unbelief in our mind. We usually ask ourselves if we are worthy enough for God to answer our prayers and meet our needs. The answer to that is an obvious NO! But God doesn’t answer our prayers because we are worthy; He does it because we are qualified. There is a difference. I may not be worthy based on my actions. But I am qualified for all the promises of God because I am in Jesus! To be qualified is to meet legal requirements. To be worthy is to be deserving. I meet the legal requirements even when I am personally undeserving. Why? Because I am in Jesus! He is worthy!

Paul said it this way: “Giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light” (Colassians 1:12). How could I possibly be qualified when I am not worthy? Simple! Jesus is worthy. He inherited all promises of God. I am now in Christ. In Him I share in the inheritance, all the riches of god.

In Jesus we were all given the gift of righteousness. We do not stand before God in our righteousness. We stand before Him in the righteousness of Christ Himself! “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference” (Romans 3:21-22)

We have a righteousness that is not of our making. It is not based on our performance; it is based on the finished work of the Lord Jesus. “But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (Corinthians 1:30).

When we receive His righteousness as a free gift, our conscience is made clear and our sense of self changes. We step into the identity that man was created to enjoy– one of dignity and worth. It is this very sense of righteousness that gives us peace and frees us from fear and wrath. It is the righteousness of Jesus that frees us from the abiding sense of lack, doom, low self-worth, and vague feeling of not measuring up. It is in this spiritual/ emotional state that we fulfill our God-given destiny as priests and kings.

–from Breaking the Cycle, by Dr. James Richards

I had the privilege of serving Dr. John Trent by putting together the video series of his Life Mapping seminar. In this seminar, Dr. John Trent helps you to map out a course for your life and get you to your destination. The seminar (and the book upon which it is based) involves taking a revealing review of the events and patterns in your past in order to develop a “storyboard” of where you’ve been, where you are, and where you’re heading. In the opening session, Dr. Trent holds up a thousand-piece puzzle box and suggests that our lives are much like a complex puzzle with all sorts of defining experiences and events fitting together to make up the whole. He then asks the question, how difficult would it be to put this puzzle together without the picture on the front of the box?

I agree that life is much like a puzzle with each piece being a component of our identity as a whole. Some pieces are our natural, God-given personality, temperament, desires and passions. Others are defining experiences that have reinforced God’s designs. Some of the pieces make up our worldview on faith, politics, relationship; determining our values and how we might react to any given life circumstance. And throughout our life, we are assembling this puzzle. But I would like to suggest an addition to this analogy: What if there were hundreds of puzzle pieces that had been added to our box that looked very similar in color and design but did not go with our personal puzzle? And what if we didn’t have the picture on the front of the box to go by?

Every day, you and I are assembling our identity puzzle; searching for who we are. I often find myself questioning some of the puzzle pieces I find in my box. Is that piece really me, or did that come out of the “peer pressure” puzzle box, or the “institutional religion” box, or the “that’s how we do it in our family” box, or the “keeping up with the Joneses” puzzle box? I continue to try to force these pieces into my life puzzle despite the fact that they have never really fit and have caused me a lot of discomfort trying to make them fit. Whenever I am working with that particular piece, trying to fit it here or there, I lose my peace and find myself reacting with uncharacteristic anger and emotion. Yet, I did find the piece in my box, didn’t I?

Many of these pieces, I have found to be deeply established, false identity messages that came from wrong conclusions I have made about myself and about God after I was wronged by someone, or was hurt physically or emotionally. Others, upon examination, I realize got into my box at times I chose to chase the success illusion and allowed jealousy and striving in. Some pieces I recognized as left-overs from an unhealthy relationship with a past girlfriend or college party buddy, or foul-mouthed co-worker. I’ve had to toss out a lot of pieces from past life patterns of pornography addiction and people-pleasing and works-righteousness.

The big question I find myself asking is, “How long am I going to continue forcing pieces into my identity puzzle that just aren’t me?” Oh, and by the way, I did find the picture from the front of my box. God had it safely tucked away for me between the pages of my Bible.

Mom & Dad,
As I have considered God’s faithfulness to you over the last 50 years, I can’t help but see the rich heritage you have left to your children and grandchildren. With every new year I come to a greater understanding of the depth and significance of all I have learned and gained from you. Each time I learn a new principle or idea about how to live a successful life in God’s kingdom, I have found that the idea or principle is already so familiar and I stop and ask, “Where do I know that from?” Inevitably, I find it is because you had already modeled that lesson or principle.

I wanted to share some of the life lessons I have learned from my father and mother:

• The fundamental spiritual nature of life. It might be easy to take for granted, but not everyone grows up with parents who understand that everything that happens in life has a spiritual nature and spiritual roots. You have always taken that into account and I know that is a great generational blessing.
• How to look past the skin of the world and see the things of the kingdom. Your sensitivity to kingdom dynamics in every facet of life has been the foundation on which God has built mine.
• Mom, you have shown me how to love unconditionally and how to guide and encourage without judgment.
• Dad, you have taught me the difference between authority in position and authority in relationship. You have never needed position, titles or recognition to validate the quiet, confident authority God has given you.
• Leadership by wisdom and example over knowledge or position. One of the first things I learned from you is that there is a big difference between knowledge and wisdom. You have always been servant leaders.
• The importance of journey and process over expectations and accomplishment. You have always understood that God is more interested in the process than the end goal.
• A desire for experience over simple knowledge. You have not only pursued knowledge of God, but to truly experience a relationship with Him.
• How to recognize and pursue God’s spontaneous order over man’s rational structure. Man feels a need for structure, which can quickly become rigid. God desires order, but that order always comes with freedom and life.
• How to recognize truth in unexpected, sometimes abstract snapshots of life. Your gift to see the best in the oddities and quirks of others; to glean some truth or life lesson from virtually any situation or experience.
• How to create as created beings and a deep appreciation for all things created. Dad, your artistic gift for writing and painting and mom, your love for nature and God’s creation have been such a blessing to me.
• How to understand and operate in God’s economy of giving and receiving rather than the world’s economy of buying and selling. Watching you give things away rather than needing to sell them, and watching you graciously receive as God has provided for you through others has had a great impact on my life.

These are just a few of the many life lessons; the heritage you have passed on to me and the inheritance you are passing on to your grandchildren. I thank God for His faithfulness and I thank you for yours.

I love you,

Evan

I have been recently volunteering in the county jail. I help lead a Bible study which walks the inmates through seven steps to spiritual freedom. This week’s lesson asked the men to write down statements that their parents or others had made about them which had not agreed with God’s heart for them. The virtually unending lists of curses and destructive identity messages these men received were astounding!

These young men had grown up hearing their father or mother proclaiming over them statements like, “you’re worthless, I wish you were never born, I wish you were dead, you will never amount to anything, you just bring pain to everyone you know, you’re going to end up in prison or dead” and on and on and on. Many of these statements were reinforced by their fathers abandoning them.
I asked my group, “What are the kinds of statements you make to and about yourself when you mess up?” Not surprisingly, they listed the exact same kinds of destructive proclamations they had received throughout their lives.

Is it any surprise that a child who was never given any value; who never came to know their own worth to God and had no worth to their own parents would grow up to see no worth or value in other’s lives or property? No wonder they end up drinking, drugging, stealing and killing. Why not, nothing really matters anyway.

But can you blame their parents? Their mothers and fathers most likely grew up with the same statements being made about them and with the same lack of self worth. And so it goes, generation after generation, until someone tells them that a loving God created them and has a good plan for their lives.

It is amazing to see the light come on as they realize that all those statements were lies, and that they do have value to God and others. Suddenly a sensitivity to the plight of others creeps in; a true regret for the pain caused by their crimes. A hope begins to burn and a new purpose and vision for a life of living right and doing good comes into their eyes. They begin thinking about their fatherless children and the women they have used.

Identity is at the root of every social, economical and spiritual problem we have in the world. If we want to truly cut crime, we need to reach these hurting families with the love of God before they program their children to grow up to be criminals.

As I have discovered and become immersed in the world of facebook, I have been pleasantly surprised to find identity and authenticity as the foundation on which facebook’s success is built. Facebook is a social-networking site through which individuals stay connected to their family, friends and colleagues. What sets facebook apart from all the other online communities, like MySpace, is that misrepresentation of your real self is a violation of company policy.

Facebook.com’s mastermind, Mark Zuckerberg, identifies authenticity as a critical part of his vision for facebook. Through facebook, I can share as detailed a picture of my identity as I desire, but only with people whom I have given permission to access my profile. Unlike MySpace, facebook only allows individuals in my “friends list” to access my page and interact with me.

With 150,000 new users joining facebook every day, there must be something here that people are looking for. I think people are flocking to facebook because it is a portal through which their true self can be seen by others and through which they can get an authentic view into the lives of those they know. It is also a place where they can share information in a relevant way.

This trend is indicative of a hunger in our culture for realness. There is a desire for something more than prime-time TV sitcoms, airbrushed network news anchors and false realities generated by Hollywood graphic artists. We saw our first clue of this movement in all the “reality TV” programming over the last few years and, I believe, will continue to see this cultural move towards authenticity grow over the next decade.

See you on facebook!

Every one of us have people in our lives who are difficult to love. It may be a boss or co-worker. Or they may live closer to home, like a friend, sibling, parent or spouse. They may be struggling with deeply-established life patterns of sin. They may be angry and reacting out of hurt and wounds. Or maybe they are someone we have to interact with regularly who is just downright mean. In many cases we really want to love them, and in all cases, as Christians, we are called to love them– even when they are our enemy. How do I love someone who is unlovable?

First, I have to remind myself that love is a powerful weapon of spiritual warfare. Love is a supernatural force of God which brings life to those who receive it. Second, I have to know that this kind of love is not tied to my emotions. I do not have to “feel” like I love the person; I choose to to love them. Love is a verb. And third (and most important) I have to believe in the invisible. This is what is meant in 1 Corinthians 13:7 where it is written that love believes all things.

This kind of love leads to a revelation of a person’s true identity in Jesus. This kind of belief entails a download from God of His heart for the person and an understanding of how He sees them. I come to know, deep down in my heart, that this individual is more than the brokenness, weakness or meanness they may appear on the outside. With this revelation and understanding comes the energy and endurance I need to love and serve above and beyond my natural ability.

When I believe all things on behalf of another person, I release God’s Spirit into their life to convict them of sin, to heal them of wounds and to draw them to Himself. He fills me with the wisdom of His truth about a person so that I can speak that truth into their life and cut away lies. Isaiah 49:2 says that He made our mouth like a sharpened sword. This sword can cut both ways. We speak out of what we believe, and that either builds a person up in agreement with God, or is a destructive force in their life when we speak out of only what we see in the natural.

All we need do is ask Him, “Who do You see when you look at this person?”

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue…” Proverbs 18:21

We each have a desire, or need, for something greater than ourselves; some bigger purpose or meaning in life. The prevalent questions of our age are, “Who am I?” and, “Why am I here?” There must be some reality beyond the small world within which I live today. There has to be some greater destiny than this meager existence.

American sociologist and theologian, Peter Berger, speaks of “signals of transcendence” or clues or signs that lead us to consider the possibility that we are not accidents of chance. I would go a step further and suggest that these signals of transcendence are glimpses of the Kingdom of Heaven; fingerprints of the One who created the universe and Who designed each one of us for a specific purpose and role within that universe.

There are universals, or principles of reality, upon which existence itself is ordered and built. For example, what some might call “karma” is nothing more than the natural law of sowing and reaping. Everything we do and say (dare I suggest everything we even think) is a seed that is planted in the soil of our own hearts and the hearts of others. No seed is neutral. It is either good or it is bad. Every seed will bear fruit, either good, or bad. Another reality of the law of sowing and reaping is “multiplication”. If I plant one seed of wheat (or of anger, or lust, or of love, or service), I can expect a harvest that produces dozens, or hundreds of it’s own kind.

These signals of transcendence can be seen much like we see signs of invisible physical forces such as gravity. I may take it for granted when I see a rock rolling down a hill, or a leaf falling from a tree. I may even forget gravity exists as I go about my day-to-day life. However, my ignorance of gravity does not make it any less a reality when I stumble and fall. Likewise, the spiritual and relational laws of the universe effect us whether we acknowledge or understand them or not.

I suggest we look for these signs and clues, as we might see that leaf falling, and come to know the One who left them for us to find. To know Him is to come to understand His ways and to know His greater purpose and meaning for our lives.

There are four basic systems of thought, or worldviews according to which we each operate (many times according to more than one, or all four): Our ways of processing life are either rooted epistemologically in thinking, existentially in feeling, or pragmatically in doing.

Many will respond to life’s challenges by thinking them through and formulating ideas and logically working through challenges in life to a point where one has a planed response to life problems. On the down side, they may think themselves into inaction by accepting thoughts of fear and failure.

Others react emotionally and seek to reconcile life’s difficulties in their heart. They grapple emotionally until they feel OK about whatever challenge life may have dealt. Unfortunately, feeling good can turn to feeling bad almost instantaneously.

Still others react by doing. To step out decisively and implement a program answers to the pragmatists felt need. Sometimes this can lead to doing everything but what is best in a given situation.

All the above systems of reacting to life can be valid, sensible approaches to solving life problems.

However, there is a fourth system which, when understood, becomes the foundation of the Christians worldview: Christianity is ultimately rooted ontologically, in being. Although thinking, feeling and doing are key to the Christian walk, we will never find real victory and transformation until we replace the “old man” or identity with the “new man” and BE what we were created.

Just as all points of the compass are critical to navigation but are all dependent on North as a point of reference; thinking feeling and doing are important to navigating through life, but will not result in true direction without their relative position to being. Once we have an inner revelation of who God created us to be, we have a “true North” from which we know what to think (West), what is a valid emotion (South) and what is sensible and productive to do (East).

I was at the park last night with my kids, sitting on a bench listening to my new iPod Touch (love it!) when a car pulled up and three guys got out with a basketball. They proceeded to change their shirts and looked like they were getting ready for some serious basketball– at least two of them did; the third must have been there just to watch, I concluded, based on several factors: He was short and stocky, with a very long upper body and very short legs (exaggerated by the sagging, over-sized shorts he was wearing). He did change his shirt along with the others which revealed a back brace. He moved as if his back was all but broken, almost waddling as he walked. “These two other guys are going to play circles around the short one,” I said to myself as it became apparent he was going to play, too.

Boy, was I proven wrong! He never moved faster than a walk (or waddle), while the other two ran. He only occasionally side stepped or spun around, while the other two pulled all sorts of fancy moves. As the three of them seemed to be playing some kind of game of 21, he somehow ended up with the ball most of the time. He would just casually reach out as one of them flew by and the ball would just magically stick to his hand. He made almost every shot he took, no matter how far away from the basket he was. I was astounded and fascinated! I couldn’t take my eyes (eye) off of him as he casually strolled around the court, beating the other two seemingly more capable players without breaking a sweat.

I thought to myself, “Isn’t this just how it is with this crazy world.” You just can’t judge a guy by the shorts he is wearing. Maybe this is why we are not supposed to judge people at all. And how often do we send negative identity messages to others based on conclusions we jump to looking at outward appearance? I wonder how often this basketball player was put in a box by others, like I did. And how often did it go beyond judging from a distance to making jokes and snide comments at his expense? Even worse; how often do guys like this never reach their potential because they believe what others say and then give up?

This incredible basketball player must have had some great motivator to transcend the judging and teasing he must have received. He had someone who believed in him, or an exceptional environment of grace such as the other two players seemed to give him. Not everyone is that fortunate and more than most never reach their potential because they do not have that someone special who will look beyond the outward and see their true identity and destiny. I will be a bit slower to jump to conclusions next time I see a car pull up at the park.

Those things we feed in ourselves are the things that grow. Our words have the power of life and death. We too often own and feed our weaknesses and prophesy over ourselves all the worst we see of our sin and habits. Much like a camera captures an image of whatever subject the lens of the camera is focused upon; we create an inner image of whatever we are focussing on the most. The more we focus on that image, the more it is reproduced in our lives.

There are two truths about my identity. There is “what is true” and that is I am a sinner who daily fails to be the person I know I should be. I think terrible things, and make terrible choices. The truth about how I behave is undeniable. However, there is also something called “The Truth” and that is I am the new creation; washed clean of my sin by Christ’s sacrifice; gifted and called to serve the King of Kings; created to be unique and talented; loved by the creator of the universe.

There is no question that we need to be honest about our sin and constantly confessing, repenting and choosing the grace of God for those areas of our lives where we are not behaving according to who God made us to be. However, God separates our behavior from our identity and sees us as the finished work He created us to be. Christ’s blood covers us and the Father sees us as the righteousness of Christ. The enemy is constantly looking to re-enforce the feeling of failure and place condemnation and a burden of shame on our shoulders. When we focus on and feed our weaknesses, we are agreeing with the kingdom of darkness. I want to agree with the one who made me and focus on The Truth about my identity.

Similarly, what we believe about and for each other also tends to be what is reproduced. Standing with God and agreeing with The Truth about those we love produces faith vision in their lives and brings life.

Phillipians 4:8 Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy –meditate on these things.