What’s your Identity?
What makes you who you are? When people think of you, what do they think of? When you think of yourself, what do you think of? What happens if you lose your identity? We all tend to grab hold of something that we decide is very important about ourselves and we feed and nurture whatever that is so that we can feel satisfied with ourselves and be accepted by others. It becomes very important and without it we feel empty and lost.
I had a co-worker who recently retired. He had worked for the hospital as a painter for many years. In fact, he was in a position to retire earlier and no one could understand why he would stick around. After he did retire he was showing up at work sites to see how things were going calling his co-workers to keep up on what they were working on. It’s what he had done for years…it was his identity and without it he seemed lost. I think he felt as if his purpose in life was over. I think that many retirees feel the same way.
I was taking a class at the college and finished after 4 semesters of night class. I like to learn but I don’t like school, so I couldn’t wait for it to be over. When the day came and I took my final test I was feeling pretty good because I had done well in the class and I was done. But there was a part of me that was going to miss telling people I was taking a college course. Whenever I told people they were always interested and asked questions about what I was studying. It made me feel important and boosted my ego, but now I wouldn’t be able to tell people that anymore. It had become part of my identity and now it was gone. What if that was all I had in my life that made me feel important?
So what is it that your identity consists of? Is it the clothes you wear, the car you drive, the house you own, how fit you are, your talent, your looks, who you married, your job, your kids…how about how much money you have?
In 1929 after a period of great prosperity for our country the stock market experienced some declines that caused people to panic and rush to sell all their stocks. The market crashed and our country went into “The Great Depression”. Some people lost everything they had (in their mind). Many had made money their identity. As long as they had it they were somebody and when they lost it, well…some committed suicide. They had nothing else to fall back on, without money, life wasn’t worth living. They had lost their identity. (Proverbs 17:16)
Relationships can also be part of our identity…who are friends are, who are family is, who we date or marry. I’ve seen a lot of broken hearted teenagers while working with the youth group. They think they’ve found “the one” and start thinking of their future life with this person. They talk about marriage, kids, jobs, where they will live, what their rest of their life will be like. Then the bottom falls out and their future is erased...hope is gone…life is over. We’ve had teenagers in our high schools commit suicide over a break up with their girlfriend or boyfriend.
Hang in there. This seems depressing but there is a point.
Let’s step away from the individual identity and look at how a relationship can have an identity of its own. People might date or marry someone for who they are, what they have, or what they can do for them (sometimes love has nothing to do with it). Now I’m going PG-13…some people’s relationship identity is sex. They are together because they’ve had sex with each other and as long as the sex continues they will be fine. There are people who pick their partner for life based on how good they are in bed. It doesn’t matter if they can cook, clean, mow the lawn, or hold a job, it’s all based on sex. When that identity is gone, the relationship has nothing left to stand on. Divorce happens.
So how do we avoid all these depressing outcomes? Let me start by saying to be careful what you base your identity on. There are a lot of things in this world that are here one minute and gone the next. There is actually only one thing that is guaranteed…God’s love for us. If we base our lives…our identity on God first, we will always have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, and self control (Galatians 5:22-23). When we make mistakes, Jesus saves. When the world kicks our butt, the Holy Spirit comforts us and gives us the will to go on. When our own kids leave the nest, there’s still a whole world of God’s children that need our help. We always have value and purpose for our lives.
I like being known as a Christian. That’s something that can never be taken away from me. I may lose my job, my money, or even my hair…but I know my God will always be there.
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