Identity

 

 

Weekly Feature

Identity

Source: Charlotte Scanlon-Gambill

Over recent years I have become aware of a struggle many of us have to deal with and a journey we all need to embark upon. My awareness was in part because of my own journey, a journey that has forced me to think very deeply about my true identity as a person. This was then increased by a series of encounters with other Christians who were having what I can only describe as an identity crisis.

As a result, I have realised like never before that 'identity' is a big issue; it is at the core of our happiness and fruitfulness in life. People who really know who they are, both as a person and as a believer, live their lives to the full and make the greatest impact on others. And that should be everyone – including you!

Let the Journey begin

I believe there is a journey we all must embark upon. It's a journey that some people may never ever take, or even be aware of its existence. For others, it's a journey that they feel is too personal to talk about. It is the journey of discovering who you really are.

This journey confronts you with the question, 'Who Am I?' and demands that you move beyond answering it with any title, label or role that you currently fulfil in life. If your answer to this question would be couched in the terms of a clinical job description, or an explanation of what you currently do in life, then this is a tell tale sign that maybe for you the journey has not yet begun.

This journey makes you really think about what makes you unique; it makes you think about what God has placed in your life that sets you apart from everyone else. It's not necessarily an easy journey to take because what you discover may make demands on you that are hard to follow through. It may call for you to make some changes and in general, could re-route your life.

We only have one life, and I am more aware than ever that this is our one chance to make our own unique mark. I for one want to make sure that the route I take in life is the most fulfilling and liberating life possible; that I get everything out of the journey God has in it for me.

Remove the Stabilisers

When you were young, did you ever learn to ride a bicycle with the help of stabilisers, or training wheels as they are sometimes called? If so, you will understand that they had the capacity to fool you into thinking that you could ride confidently and had mastered the skill of bicycle riding, only to discover later that you couldn't! All along you had been protected and stabilised by the training wheels. But one day the stabilisers were taken off you realised that the hard work of learning to ride by yourself had only just started because the support that had kept you upright was gone. This is what it's like when we set off on the journey to discover who we really are.

At thirty three years of age I am on that journey. I thought I knew who I was but over the past few years I began to realise that in some areas I still had my stabilisers on. I hadn't even begun to try and let the real me come to the surface and remove the support I was so heavily resting upon.

I had to face the fact that if I started to remove some of my stabilisers I would have to risk people seeing the real me. Inside myself I had a battle going on, I knew it was the right thing to do but I didn't want other people to see me wobble and take a tumble; I didn't want them to see me out of control. I thought I was a confident rider, yet my confidence in some areas was in the training wheels and if I was to continue with my journey I had to let them go.

I now realise that this journey of identity is a life-long one which I must be thorough about if I am to discover who I am. This has meant that in areas of my life I have had to detach from people, comforts, and securities that were acting as my spiritual stabilisers. Since then I have fallen off my 'bike' a few times, I have grazed my knee and made mistakes along the way, but now I can confidently say I have found my balance and am learning how to ride in my own right. The first time you set off without the familiar training wheels, it can be daunting, you can end up worrying about the wobbles that lie ahead. But once you realise they are part of what God intends you to go through, instead of fearing them you can begin to embrace them.

A Shared Journey

So now when I see people who appear to be confidently coasting through life, I am not intimidated by their apparent skill and how easy they make it look. Instead, I have a good look to see whether their stabilisers are still on! I have been surprised how many seemingly confident riders are actually not riding on their own yet. This should be an encouragement to us all – we are not alone!

In this book I want to share with you some of my journey, some of the 'stabilisers' I have had to remove and some of the bumps and grazes I have collected along the way. You have incredible potential in your life but the only way to maximise it, is to commit to this journey of becoming the person God created you to be. I want to invite you to walk with me for a while as we look at this identity journey. It is a journey of both separation and connection. It brings separation from any labels you have carried that don't fit the real you, and connection to the relationships God has for your life. I have discovered this journey brings with it change, challenge, disorientation and moments of sheer panic, but the benefits far outweigh the cost.

100 Percent Jesus

Jesus was given many labels and badges in his lifetime but he refused to wear any of them. He was difficult to define because there had never been anyone like him before. None of the usual labels fitted; he wasn't a religious person, he wasn't a politician and he wasn't someone who fitted into the mould of scholar. He wasn't a highly educated well-known leader and he didn't come from the kind of place that people thought world-changers should come from. He was just a boy growing up in a very ordinary home, in a very ordinary town learning the very ordinary trade of carpentry from his father, Joseph.

None of this mattered to Jesus. He wasn't flustered or upset that people couldn't work out how to describe him. He wasn't bothered when he was wrongly labelled because labels, badges and roles meant nothing to him. Why? Because when you are one hundred per cent confident in who you are as a person, you need nothing else to define you. Jesus didn't come to be defined, he arrived knowing who he was and where he was journeying to, and so he was totally himself.

Jesus gave us a blueprint for how he wanted us to live life. He modelled what it means to live being one hundred percent yourself; being totally liberated and free to express yourself in a way that glorifies God but without holding any of your true self back. He showed what understanding your true identity looks like.

A look at the complete liberty and ease he had with who he was shows how far we all have to go on our own journeys. It also explains how Jesus got so much done in his three years of ministry. He wasn't held back by people, feelings or approvals. He didn't spend hours wasting time in meetings he didn't need to be in. He wasn't constrained by agendas, muzzled by peer pressure or confined by the status quo. He had no 'stabilisers' but had a perfectly balanced life because he was one hundred percent himself.

Are you one hundred percent you like Jesus was? There is no-one on this planet who is just like you or just like me. You have an individual thumb print, the iris in your eye is different to everyone else's and you have a unique DNA code. I am sure it would have been far easier for God to set up a people production line and make everyone the same but that was never his plan. This in itself shows that God made you as an original. The question is, are you expressing that originality through your life?

So, wherever you are at, whether you have already started your journey of identity, or whether you were never aware of it before, I want to challenge you to look intently at your life and be willing to ask the question, 'Who am I?'


NOTE: If this brief extract has inspired or challenged you, you can order a copy of the book on the Abundant Life website.

Useful link: www.alm.org.uk