Identity Crisis: Who God Says You Are
When I was born into this world, I was taken into the care of two parents who were unable to have children of their own. So they adopted me 25 years ago. My birth mother was about to have an abortion and it was by intervention of a pastor friend of my adopted parents that it was stopped. I remember being told over and over by my parents of this story and the little details that really stuck by me. They loved me. I was one of them now. But as I grew older, something still was always shifting inside of me. A longing. A need. A void that was always attempting to get filled and for some reason it just couldn’t.
I discovered music around age 7 and when I was fifteen years old, I started touring regionally with my first band in high school. Oh, those days of playing coffee shops and small churches with bad sound systems that for whatever reason translated so well to the rebel teenagers of the early 2000’s. They liked the music, therefore they liked me. Especially the girls. Holding an electric guitar gave me importance, and speaking into a microphone gave me authority. All of the sudden, I had filled that void with satisfaction that someone was satisfied with me. So the more compliments I received, the more I was achieving my goal of filling the void. Hearing me say this now sounds like a corporate target goal for the week.
This is when my identity issues started happening.
I’m not exactly sure when I discovered that I was operating on this dysfunctional system,but I remember understanding the gateway was in compliments. The one compliment that triggered something inside of me that longed for more could only be fully fulfilled in one person.
"If your identity is in anything other than a son or daughter of God, it’s a lesser identity…”
- Leeland Mooring
Sonship/Daughter-ship is a place of understanding. What I mean by that is, for me, when I came to an understanding that I’m already loved and approved by God, I was fulfilled immediately. That void never has to be attempted to get fulfilled again.
But, I would be lying if I said that this doesn’t happen anymore. In fact, that void may never go away.
Sometimes, I find myself trying to fulfill what the leadership in my church wants more than what God is originally calling forth in me. The difference is that I’m much quicker to notice it now, and therefore I can operate out of a place of sonship and not approval. Operating out of approval leads to many more decisions that take you further away as a son/daughter and therefore your decisions are made upon life and not upon God. Operating from that place of sonship/daughter-ship gives you direct connection with your father in the midst of life’s burdens.
2 Corinthians 6:18 |
“I’ll be a Father to you; you’ll be sons and daughters to me.”
I once had a friend that was engaged to a girl, but I could sense his hesitancy to marry her. I asked him a simple question, "Do you love her?" His answer was honest and it gave me perspective on how I had been looking at God's love since I was a child. He said, "Yes I love her...but I also love tacos." His love for a girl was on the same level as a taco!! Crazy (and hilarious) as that is, that question and answer in itself gave clarity on the love of God.
God’s love fulfills our every void. It surpasses our every question and provides every answer. Grace and truth far outweigh our sins, doubts, wrongs, and identity issues. The love that God is presenting to us is like a Father simply giving a gift to their kids every single day and sometimes we forget that love because it is used so freely in our world today.
The Love of God | Frederick M. Lehman
The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell; It goes beyond the highest star, And reaches to the lowest hell; The guilty pair, bowed down with care, God gave His Son to win; His erring child He reconciled, And pardoned from his sin.
Oh, love of God, how rich and pure! How measureless and strong! It shall forevermore endure— The saints’ and angels’ song.
When hoary time shall pass away, And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall, When men who here refuse to pray, On rocks and hills and mountains call, God’s love so sure, shall still endure, All measureless and strong; Redeeming grace to Adam’s race— The saints’ and angels’ song.
Could we with ink the ocean fill, And were the skies of parchment made, Were every stalk on earth a quill, And every man a scribe by trade; To write the love of God above Would drain the ocean dry; Nor could the scroll contain the whole, Though stretched from sky to sky.
So remember that YOU are loved by the God of the most high and NOTHING can separate that. For in the love of God, you will live, and live more abundantly.
Romans 8: 35-38 says this:
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”[j]
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
TOP 3 THINGS TO REMEMBER
God calls you a son/daughter.
He loves you where you are regardless of what decisions have been made.
Nothing will change God's love. So let us love and be loved by Him.