how to find your identity and how not to lose it
I’ve shared my challenges with perfection in the last five weeks and the consequences of making an alliance with perfection has infected my identity.
I’m a wife, mother, daughter, friend, writer, homeschooler, worship leader, and in each of these roles I’ve fallen for perfect’s lies that acceptance, security, and significance is based on my performance in those roles.
Though I homeschool, I don’t find acceptance in all social circles. My role as ‘mom’ is significant in my daily life, but my significance is not found in my children.
Identity is much more than my name, occupation, heritage, personality, and roles, but the continual struggle with acceptance, security, and significance tells me that perhaps I’m basing my identity in the wrong things.
When I root my identity in what I do and how well I perform, I set myself up for insecurity because roles change, health can be taken away in an instant, relationships end, and I am left wondering who I am.
Perfect harmed my identity because it fed rejection, insecurity, and insignificance. These became daily struggles that threatened my peace of mind and fed my relationship with perfect.
Identity is something we search for and long to find, and often we think we find it in positive thinking, supporting worthy causes, or doing well in our calling. But there is a fault with each of these. It places the responsibility for our identity on ourselves or others, and this is a weak foundation to build on.
There is a much stronger foundation and when laid properly, it provides long-lasting immunity to the failures we’ll face or the rejection others will exhibit or the circumstances that change our roles. This foundation is guaranteed to provide us with acceptance, security, and significance.
We will explore these areas through God’s word and examine some of the reasons why we struggle with believing them.
Invisibility, inferiority, and insecurity are the weapons used against our identity and we will attempt to pick up weapons like perfection, pride, or posing to counter-attack them. The trouble with the counter-attacks is that they lend themselves to our enemy’s side because they take root in our hearts.
Removing them is possible, but it involves identifying which lies you’re listening to and replacing the recording in your mind with truth.
And this is truth:
You are accepted, secure and significant. And did I mention loved?
Love is the motivation behind knowing and accepting who we are in Christ. Knowing and embracing the love God lavishly pours out on us and loving him back unreservedly.
This is the beginning of our journey to rooting our identity in Christ.
