As for Me and My HouseНамуна

Sellout

As soon as I handed over the check, it was done. The apartment was now mine.

One bedroom on the second floor of a quiet, detached, two-family home. I walked around the empty rooms in wonder and gazed out the bay window overlooking the tree-lined street below. There were no abandoned buildings or sinister men huddled on the street corners. The constant “boom-boom” of songs played from parked cars was replaced with silence and the occasional chirping of birds.

I was mesmerized by the scene before me. It was so peaceful. I couldn’t believe I had actually made it out of the old neighborhood. Finally, I was safe. 

But the peace was short-lived. As I stood there, voices from my past began to echo in my mind. Sell out … Who do you think you are? … You owe it to your people to stay here.

While it might be hard to imagine that family and friends would try and hold their loved ones down, those words and more were directed at me by people I cared for and respected. I began to wonder if I was being selfish by moving into this neighborhood. Maybe I didn’t deserve such a nice place. Perhaps I should limit my aspirations now, before I went too far.

Most of the social and economic forces that work against minorities are well-documented. Yet sometimes the most difficult forces to overcome are not external, they are internal. They are the voices of well-intentioned family and friends who think they are protecting us from failure. And they are the voices in our heads telling us we will lose our identity if we stray too far from the group. 

When we link our identities to a particular group, we feel pressure to maintain membership in that group, no matter the cost. My groups were racial and economic, but it can happen with any group. Try defecting from your family’s favorite sports team and watch what happens. It would probably be easier to root for a losing team, than it would be to switch allegiances. 

The apostle Paul listed several groups people in the Corinthian church used to identify with. He said ethnicity, economic class, and gender are not as important as we think. As believers, we are “one in Christ Jesus.” Our identity comes from Him.

While I will always be a Hispanic man who grew up in the ‘hood, that is not who I am. It doesn’t matter where I live, work, or how I dress. I am a child of the King. As such, I am also a brother to every other believer on earth. Christ has broken down the walls that separate us. 

We are free to follow Him wherever He might lead. 

For more help read, “What Does It Mean to Find Your Identity in Christ?” on FamilyLife.com.