If you asked 100 people what defined them, what kind of answers would you get? Would those answers even be the correct answers?
Should we ask those people or 100 of those people’s friends? Would that provide the correct answer?
If you are in the 16-25 age group, you’ve at one point thought, “What’s my identity or who am I.”
Self-discovery is a big trend in this day and age, but it’s a trend that’s been around forever.
With the rise of social media, it has become easy to compare yourself to your peers. It has given people a open door to shape your identity.
Many Christians would say that their identity is found in Christ. While this is and should be true, our identity is shaped not by one thing but by many.
It is through voices and influences, our identity begins to shape.
So, back to my first couple of questions. You could ask 100 people what defines them, you either hear what they fear they might be, or you may hear what they aspire to be, but not who they truly are.
Ask 100 of their friends, you might get a more accurate view, but still a hazy one. They are looking through their expectations of what they want from that person.
A little over a year ago, my Bishop gave out a prayer card just with just a few prayer prompts, and one of the prompts was this, “ God help me to see me the way you see me.”
God truly knows what defines you. He can see outside of time the end from the beginning.
He knows what used to define you, what defines you now, and what will define you. Suppose you can see his perfect definition for you and be in his will. In that case, whenever those other influences try to distort your identity, you always go back to the one who can direct and redirect your identity to what it indeed should be.
God has called us to be ourselves with our strengths and weaknesses, personalities, everything!
So, if we can get his vision for our lives, we can indeed find ourselves and have fulfilling and content. Instead of letting everyone else’s identity rub off on us, and we become a diluted version of ourselves as well as who God has called us to be.
