Who am I?
After finishing college and starting the daily grind of work in a career, it's easy to have an identity crisis. If you don't like the job field you're working in, or feel like friends or life situations have changed, it can be easy to question "Who am I really?"
It's tempting to place our identity in seasons of life, externals, accomplishments, relationships, or work, but when these things end or change we have to question "Is this who I am and is this something I'm proud of?"
In John 1: 19-28, John the Baptist is preaching about Jesus, a man who lives by the desert ways eating locust and wild honey is teaching brand new things about Christ. And the priests and Levites of the Jews questioned John:
Who are you?
Who are you really? What is your identity? By what authority are you teaching these things? Are you really qualified? Do you have value?
And John's reply is not to defend his own identity, value, or self but he says "I am the voice of one calling in the desert, Make straight the way for the Lord."
I think their is great value in understanding that we are not called to be self-supporting people. That when the world tries to smash our identities, and our values, we don't have to try and defend them. That we don't have to worry about who we are in the world, our status, our prosperity level, our job reputation, class, or race. Because our identity should be nothing apart from being hidden in Christ.
College trains us to make something of ourselves. The word teaches us to push so that we can rise to the top, so that people will respect us, so that we can make a name for ourselves.
But God says, make no name for yourself, but be my representative. Be my servant. Find your identity and your worth in me and me alone.
Joseph, Daniel, Abraham, Mary- every Biblical character- that follows God's plans for their life choose a path full of humility instead of self- promotion. They gave away their worldly value, their own reputations, their own ideas and plans to become a servant of God.
And yet so often Satan tries to trap us into thinking we can have our cake and eat it too. That we can become something while promoting God as Lord. But as John 3:30 says, we can't seek our own gain while glorifying God. "He must become greater; and I must become less."
So maybe the question "Who am I?" is not as important as "Who do you know?" or "Who do you serve?"?
What importance are our jobs, reputations, friends, and outward labels, if we are not representing God to make Him bigger and share Him to the world.
How do I change my life so that my life consists more of self-denial, discipline, and sacrifice so that I can better testify as a witness of God?
What does it mean for my identity to be so rooted in God?
Where is the balance between being at the bottom and getting walked on and being at the top, as a leader?
What is my Biblical identity and how does God want me to view myself as His child?
