Child of God

A couple months ago, I was talking with a friend of mine about what God was teaching him over the summer.  This friend is incredibly funny, profoundly creative, and highly entertaining.  All important characteristics for a person involved in the energetic atmosphere of summer camp.  His natural charisma makes him an obvious choice for getting the kids excited and being the center of attention.  Recently, however, he chose to take the behind-the-scenes position instead.  You see, he realized that his identity was in performing for others.  At the beginning of the summer he asked himself the question, "Do I want to be remembered as the person who did that really awesome thing during camp, or that person who poured into my life and showed me Christ?"  After keeping this at the center of his thoughts throughout the summer and through being highly intentional, he was able to begin the process of reclaiming his identity in Christ.  I was moved by his humility and honest reflection on his time in camp.  I found that as he spoke, he spoke words that I needed to hear for my own story.

I've never really considered myself the person who needs to be the center of attention.  I also haven't really considered myself the kind of person who needs the affirmation of others.  It just goes to show how ignorant I can be when it comes to self-awareness.  You see, when I am in conversations with others, I often feel the need to share some profound insight with them.  Things generally come to me in conversations that may or may not be directly linked to the current conversation, but I immediately interject them regardless.  Sometimes these insights are truly profound and come from the Holy Spirit, the problem is that the sharing of them is not always for the edification of God.  Sometimes when I receive affirmation from others due to an insight, I think to myself, "Yep, and you heard it from me."  Okay, maybe not literally, but the point is that I thrive off of that affirmation.  So I continue to offer insights in conversations.  In discussing this with my spiritual director, he helped me to see how I had cultivated this identity that was driven by what others thought of me.  He challenged me to try withholding those insights for a time and to begin rediscovering my identity in Christ.

Since that time, I have tried to stay away from providing insights unless asked.  By simply listening to my friends without trying to provide insights, I've been able to truly hear their stories and their own reflections.  I have been able to see them in a new light and my appreciation for them has grown even more as a result.  It has also been a very humbling activity and has included times where I felt insecure with creeping doubts and concerns that perhaps people thought less of me for not providing some theological truth or some fitting quote to meditate on.  This feeling served to confirm the deeply entrenched roots of this false identity.  My need to be seen as wise had superseded my identity in Christ.

The other day, I had to translate Genesis 3:1-8 for my Hebrew class.  In going through the account of the fall of man, I was struck by the identity crisis that Adam and Eve faced.  The snake in the garden said that they will be like God if they ate of the fruit, but in Genesis 1 it says that mankind was created in the image of God.  They began to see the tree as a giver of a new identity and had lost the identity given to them by God.  Needless to say, I resonated with their choice and shared in their shame.  The wonderful thing is that God is constantly seeking to restore our identity in him.  He is constantly offering us the opportunity to become his child once more.  Throughout the Old Testament we see God pursuing man with the precious gift of his presence.  Jesus gives us the prodigal son who returns home after losing his identity and the father restores him to full rights as a son.  Paul even calls us children of God and coheirs with Christ (Romans 8).  In Ephesians 2, he says that we are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.   What a wonderful and remarkable identity!  It is so easy to be tempted into allowing others to dictate your identity and who you are, but we must hold fast to the identity that God himself has given us.  So where does your identity lie?  Have you allowed others to dictate your identity based on what they think of you?  May I offer this as a fellow wanderer:  Seize the moment to live into your identity as a child of God.