Inner Journey Blog

Shedding My Worldly Identities

One of the challenges to living out of my identity in Christ (child of God, beloved, valued, chosen, treasured) is that I can be so entrenched in my worldly identities.

We all play significant roles in the world. My roles include: father, husband, provider, minister, friend, teacher, etc. Good roles, hopefully, and meaningful! Yet, I seem to have the capacity to put these roles on and cover myself with them, like a blanket, so completely that I become the role. I become entrenched in some or many of the roles so completely that I lose sight of my true inner self. The role becomes "who I am."

I believe this is because we develop these role-identities, to some degree, in order to "be someone." They become part of our false-self protective mechanisms from early on. I don't feel good about who I am, but I receive some positive attention and feedback from getting a good grade, so I will become a "good student." This, in my case, became something to "be." Since being myself was not "working," I might as well try "being" that someone who does receive positive input. I will not only try to do well at school, I will fully become this new identity, this new person, this "good student" personna.

This seems to have carried over, for me, into so many areas of life. I have taken my roles so seriously that they have, in the past, become fully "who I am." In become so fully entrenched in them I literally lost myself. I, who I really am, is then a person with no intrinsic or internal identity. I am merely what I am on the outside. I am no more than the external persons that I am attempting to be.

Thank God that His view of me is so radically different. Thank God that He loves and values the true me, the me that is me without being someone else or doing anything. It has taken much work, faith, and painful experiences to be willing to let go of my external identities (or, at least, to not cling to them so completely). But, in doing so, the wonder of discovering myself valued, loved, and delighted in for who I am is amazingly worth it. Amazingly worth it!

Perhaps most people have never been as entrenched in their external identities as myself. But the joy of being free of this and finding my identity, first and foremost, as a beloved child of the Everlasting Creator is indeed wondrous. How much easier and joyful it is to put roles on (father, minister) without taking on the full weight of this role as an identity. It's a role, but it's not who I am. I want to do it well, but if I don't "measure up" or even if I completely "fail" in some respect, it's simply something that I failed in, something that I can learn from and grow in, it's not the deep shame of "me" being now "a failure."

I may be successful in a role, or not. Either way, my true self is intact. I am, most fully, just who I am, and knowing who I am, it's enough regardless of what has happened to or through me in the world. As someone said, "I am a spiritual person having an earthly experience." Since I am more than anything that takes place in my world, I am free to enjoy who I am and life itself because the "I" that I am is not entrenched in the world.

I am His, now, forever. Not even "I" can change this!

Intrinsic Value

Being made in the image of God means that I have intrinsic value. I am valuable beyond measure just for who I am. I am inestimably wonderfully fashioned.

This is a difficult reality to internalize although I can look at another person and recognize their intrinsic value. When one of my eighteen-month-old children would sleep peacefully, I could look at him and hold him in the highest regard and value--not for anything that he was doing or would do, but just for who he is. When he would wake up, turn, and smile at me in recognition, I would be completely delighted by this person. A very useless person by our standards of function and purpose. But I was not delighted in his abilities or performance, just in him... who he is.

On the other hand, without a deep sense of intrinsic value in myself, I have developed many false-self ways to try to be or feel valuable-- most of them having to do with performing well or being approved of by others. Finding value in externals rather than from the intrinsic wonder of who I am. Somehow, when it comes to me, I measure my value by accomplishment, status, role, successes, etc.

There is a hole in my heart that says, "I'm nothing in and of myself." This hole has bee carved out by a broken, deceived world and by the enemy's lies. I have bought in and busied myself trying to fill this hole with external "evidence" of my someone-ness.

Yet Scripture declares my intrinsic value in no uncertain terms:

Made in the image of God

Bride of Christ

Treasured

Delighted In

Seated with Christ

Chosen

Loved as the Father loves the Son

Perhaps the greatest declaration of my intrinsic value is found in these words:

But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. Romans 5:8

While we were ignoring and turning our backs on God, He valued and wanted us enough to pay an unimaginable price. Intrinsic value! I actually am that valuable!

That same truth has been emphasized by the Spirit who descended and declared over Jesus: "This is my beloved Son..." The Spirit is still coming and resting on us with the same declaration-- "beloved son, beloved daughter." In this way He is actively pouring the love of God into our hearts in order that we might internalize and experience our intrinsic value.

Who I Am

I want to renew my meditations on "who I am." Not the "who I am" that I am as the result of sin and a broken world. But the "who I am" as created and redeemed to be. This is, in fact, the real "who I am."

The wonder of this is so "out there" that John declared "we can't even imagine what we will be like when Christ returns." He elaborates by saying, "that when he comes we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is."

This is not just a statement of what we will become, it is also a statement of who we are now. Though we are not fully manifested in the wonder of what John describes, it is still our future and therefore says something about our true identity right now, today.

It is phenomenal when one reflects on it. "We will be like him."

In some ways, John is saying that we cannot fully grasp our own true identity... it would stretch our imaginations to the breaking point if we really could get our minds around it.

Because of our broken world and wayward hearts we are so often focused on the sin side of our world and of our selves. We see the failures, feel the shame, know the mistakes we've made, and understand our limitations and all-too-frail humanness. Yet the cross is far more than just, "you're forgiven," it's an invitation to step out of the old life that was created in the image of sin and to step into and embrace the new life that is created in Christ. I am no longer "a sinner saved by grace," but I am a "saint" whose ongoing mistakes are covered by a grace far deeper than I deserve.

In fact, to go back one more step, my identity is not first "a sinner saved by grace," but my initial, foundational identity is found in the amazing words of Genesis, "made in the image of God." Though I was broken by sin, and redeemed by grace, "who I am" begins with these amazing words-- the image of God.

Simply put, this means that I am really somebody... I mean, really, somebody... made with an incredible beauty, glory, wonder, awe, and more. I am actually capable of reflecting, in some magnificent way, the very wonder and transcendent glory of the Creator God. He is able, in a mysterious way, to dwell in my soul, which means that my soul has a capacity unlike any other created thing. I am made for a partnership, friendship, love relationship, unity with Deity. This is unthinkable, really, yet something that I long to more fully understand.

"Who I am" is more than a passing meditation... it is an entry point into a life lived with some of the peace and joy that the Kingdom of God has already invaded our lives with.