Who am I? This is a question we all ask at some point, and dare I say, many points in our lives. According to famed psychologist, Erik Erikson (yes that’s really his name), there is a whole developmental stage defined by this question and the relentless quest for the ever-elusive answer. In a world without God, there are so many insufficient attempts at answering this question. You are defined by your gender, by your education, by your body size, by your income level, by your job title, by your marital status, by your children, by your commitment to healthy living, etc. Yet, all of these fall short in so many ways to define the multi-faceted masterpiece that is a human being. But failing to see the nuance of an image-bearer is not the world’s only failing here. In fact, I would propose that the most egregious of the failings in the entire “identity crisis” conversation is the sheer self-centeredness of it. This is, by nature, a navel-gazing question. It asks “who am I” in isolation – without the influence of any outside entity or role. Who am I alone, in a vacuum. And that is not how we were designed, and frankly, I think this is the reason this question never truly gets an answer.
I’m going to go beyond the “we are made to live in community” trajectory here, and say that, in all honesty, we are asking the wrong question. Frankly, it isn’t about me, and who I am. This is not even MY story. This is so much bigger than me. This is so much bigger than us living in community or incorporating God into OUR lives. We, in our selfish human natures, have been trying to make God fit into our stories instead of humbling ourselves to ask what role we play in HIS story. In the grand scheme of things, we are a blip on the timeline. We are a cog in the wheel of the kingdom of heaven, and if we have allowed the Spirit to take over our flesh, then our stories have become, essentially, parables for his glory. We must decrease, so that HE may increase. While this is beautiful philosophy and a necessary mindset shift to begin to see ourselves correctly, the goal is ultimately the changes it leads to, such that when people see our works, they will glorify our Father in heaven. This is the mindset that leads to faith being who we are, not just something we do. Prayer becomes a consistent conversation in a loving relationship. How we treat others becomes an extension of the grace and love and mercy we were shown and assumes that they, too, have a place in God’s story. It becomes our outlook on events in our lives. No longer are these events merely happening to me; instead we see them as necessary events for our character development in a much bigger story. It is a life changing mindset shift.
Make no mistake, this is not intended to be discouraging by explaining the level of our insignificance. Instead it is meant to help us to get outside of our own self-centered natures and put ourselves into a much much bigger picture. Our God is a wonderful maker and father and husband who clothes the lilies of the field and feeds the sparrows. We are infinitely and individually important to Him, which Scripture makes abundantly clear. But in order to walk in the fullness of who we are intended to be, in order to answer truly the question of “who am I,” we MUST surrender our stories into the hands of the author. Our faith cannot merely be a part of our everyday lives. It must become who we are. It must define our decisions and interactions. It must inform how we act as a single person, how we choose a spouse, how we raise our children, how we perform the work we have been given, how we treat our bodies, and how we choose to meet with God in his moments.
Far be it from me to leave you without a little practical implementation. For this month, let’s just do a mindset check.
- When circumstances outside of your control lead to an outcome you wouldn’t have chosen, is your first thought, “Why would God do this to me?” Or “Why would God let this happen to me?”
- When God gives you a job or role, do you question why he would choose you and then proceed to list every reason you are unqualified? (see Moses)
- In your prayers, are you focused on requesting that God make his plan match your desires or for God to make your heart’s desires match his plan?
Dying to the flesh is arguably the hardest battle we face as believers. But only when we recognize the magnitude of our self-centeredness and choose to shift our perspective off of ourselves, our own desires, and our own comforts can we ever hope to answer the question of who we are. And we are not our own.
