If you’re a person (or maybe I should just say “a woman”—men probably get a different answer) who’s ever wrestled with your identity and if you run with the church crowd, you’ve heard this:
Find your identity in Christ.
Am I right? As part of the book I’m working on, I maintain that this is a good answer to the wrong question. And that in fact, this thing about finding your identity in Christ comes off like a pious brush off. Like if we really DID find our identities in Christ, we wouldn’t have “issues.”
I don’t think this is true, but am looking for feedback. As a born-again, trying (though more than often failing!)-to-live-it-out Christian, that my identity is Christ IS the most important aspect of who I am. However, I still want to bust out of the mom molds (and other molds) I’m set into. And I think that’s okay. Part of my identity in Christ, I think, is living how he made me and using my gifts, abilities, personality, etc., in service to him, not in being fake or simply trying to live up to some cultural expectation.
But I worry that I’m missing something here. Am I? What’s your take on finding your identity in Christ?
I’ve been thinking about your question on and off the last few days. I don’t like it when I’m given a Christian pat answer to life’s hard questions, and that is what this seems like. Oh, you’re having an identity crisis? Just find your identity in Christ. Well, yes, of course, I have my identity in Christ, but I’ve got to figure out how to live out that identity in my life, in my circumstances. There isn’t just one way–we aren’t all little robots that once we identify with Christ, we all say, do, feel and think the same. No, God created an infinite variety of people who have their identity in Christ. So how do I live out my identity in Christ? That’s the question. And the answer is found in how God has created me (with certain gifts and talents) and shaped me (through my experiences). My identity in Christ is who I am, but it’s how I live out who I am that’s the question. And, how I discern God’s answer above the din of cultural, community, family, and internal (that little voice in my head) expectations is the challenge.