I’ve written before about identity. It’s a big topic for me, something I’ve had to change my thinking on, so it’s something I like to remind others about incase, like me, they can do with an occasional reminder.
If I were to ask you who you were, you’d probably tell me your name. On a game show, when introducing themselves, people also include their age, their job and where they are from. Sometimes people will include they married status and whether they are a parent. All of these things are true.
Internally, we can also judge ourselves on other things. We can put a lot of emphasis on possessions such as a car or a house. We can look at skills we feel we should have. These all become part of how we see ourselves, our identity. The problem with this is that if we don’t have or can’t do something we feel we should, we start to have negative thoughts about ourselves, something like feeling like a failure or a mess or like there’s something wrong with who we are.
Maybe you’ve recently lost a house, moved out of independent living into a lodging or houseshare situation. Maybe a job has gone wrong. Maybe you’ve had an accident and now can’t do something you could before. Or maybe you’ve had a relationship break, or a falling out with someone close to you.
If these are things important to your identity, these can trip a negative pattern of thinking. I know, I’ve tripped over that one many times myself. But these things are not where our identity should lie.
For example, I am not a baker. I can bake, but if you took away my ability to do that, that doesn’t take away a piece of me. I am not a musician. I can do music, but it is not who I am. Don’t get me wrong, these are both important parts of my life, things I love to do and share with others, and I would be incredibly sad if I lost the ability to do either of them. But I need to keep reminding myself that they are just parts of what I can do and not central to who I am.
That is the important bit to remember. Who you are is not wrapped up in job/tasks/relationships/possessions etc. If you make them where you find who you are, it takes much longer to recover should they go wrong. Instead, they are things that do have an impact, but there is a stronger foundation.
Maybe things have get a little messy, but you are not a mess. Maybe you make a mistake, but you are not a mistake. Maybe things go wrong, but you are not a failure. Because here is a promise from God:
But now, this is what the Lord says—
Isaiah 43: 1
he who created you, Jacob,
he who formed you, Israel:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
And again, later:
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
1 John 3: 1
You have been claimed by God. Nothing can take that away. In success and failure, in joy and despair, when it’s smooth sailing and when it’s rough seas, you are God’s beloved child. With that truth as your foundation, although the hurts still hurt, and although things will still go wrong sometimes, you won’t lose sight of who you are. You are so much more than a job or a skill.
You are a child of God.
The Reason for my Hope Blog 