Found in the FightНамуна

Finding Our Identity

If you Google yourself, you may even learn something. That’s because there are three people inside of you: the one you think you are, the one other people (and possibly Google) think you are, and the one God knows you are. The truth is, every one of our issues can be traced back to our attempts at constructing our identity around something other than who God has proclaimed us to be. So, to navigate life’s storms, it’s vital we get to grips with our true identity.

Jacob, whose story is found in Genesis 25-50, was weak, weary, insecure – and a lot like us. He ended up wrestling with God until he grasped who God was, and who he was. From the get-go, Jacob’s life was a complex fight to prove his worth by coming out on top. He and his twin brother Esau jostled for position in the womb, and even seemed to engage in an ongoing tussle as they were being born. Jacob allowed his name (meaning trickster, deceiver, schemer, or manipulator) to inform how he would operate. Yet despite Jacob’s flaws and failings, God said, ‘Jacob, I loved…’ (Romans 9:13). God didn’t love Jacob because of his behaviour, beliefs, or good decisions. Thankfully, He doesn’t love us for these reasons either.

God simply loved Jacob unconditionally, and his life journey was about discovering what God had already said about him. In the same way, when we receive the revelation of who we are in God, it quenches our thirst for acceptance, approval, and affirmation. We can release confidence, assurance, and security into the world around us. If you find yourself in a similar emotional or spiritual space to Jacob – unsure of your place in the world and who you’re meant to be, or uncertain of the future – it’s steadying to remember God’s love for you. You may also find that if you’re able to accept that you’re called and cherished by God, you’ll be less likely to play dress-up the way Jacob did – constructing various avatars and masks to cope with your uncertainty, to hide or change your true identity, or to pose as someone else to get ahead in life.

It took Jacob many years to discover who he was, and it happened as a result of an encounter with the living God. That same living God longs to meet with you. The only way you can counterbalance outside external pressures is to have an internal sense of satisfaction about who you are and who God made you to be. May you live from a place of identity, not activity, choosing to surrender all to Jesus and to give up the illusion of safety offered by the world, for the absolute assurance of security in Him.