Who are we really? Titles help us identify who we are—but what happens when the titles change?
Sometimes we define ourselves by the people in our lives. We are mom’s and dad’s, children of so and so, husbands and wives. Or we find identity in the jobs we do—teacher, business owner, truck driver.
But, what if all of those roles disappear? Parent’s die. Children leave. Jobs change.
Who are we then?
As a Christian, I know the “church” answer: I am a child of God. I am a believer in Christ. True. But beyond that, how can I live in this world and find my identity in Him when people all around me—even Christians—are shouting, “Believe in yourself!” “Trust yourself!”
For years, my identity was wrongly wrapped up in who I was as a mom, a homeschool teacher, a wife, a student of the Word. I related who I was to who was around me. Instead of relating my identity to Christ, I related it to the church.
Big mistake.
What happens when kids leave the house and graduate?
Who am I then?
What happens when the church fails me?
Searching for an answer
For the past year, I’ve been grappling with these questions. Everything in my life changed: jobs ended, kids left home, we moved to a new town, and changed churches.
The only stable thing in my life was my amazing husband.
I felt like I was teetering on the edge of a cliff:
Who am I now that all of my identifiers have changed?
I’m no longer a homeschool mom, no longer employed, no longer a church leader.
What do I do now?
The only thing I knew to do was dive deep into the Word of God.
Here’s what I learned:
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” —Luke 9:23
The problem I consistently battle is a love for the preservation of self. I don’t want to fail—because failure might damage my self-image. When I don’t know the path to take, or I flounder in the search for a job, it feels like failure. So I wallow in self-pity. I think I need to do it all on my own because I am self-sufficient.
- When will I finally realize that nothing about myself is good?
A.W. Tozer described our search for self-fulfillment as a subtle shift in the mind that leads to self-destruction.
“Self is the opaque veil that hides the face of God from us.” —Tozer
When we try to lift ourselves up, define ourselves clearly, empower ourselves, or fulfill ourselves, we’re only weaving new threads into the patched-up veil that keeps us from truly knowing God.
I think about Christ in the wilderness. He was tempted to put himself first. To make Himself great. But, in denying Himself physical comfort, He trained His body to deny even the thought of self. He defeated the enemy through letting go of Himself.
Deny Self
This is what it means to DENY ourselves:
We let go of our own comfort and release ourselves into the hands of God.
We begin to trust Him more as we see Him work in us and through us—
As He teaches us from His Word everyday.
When Christ ultimately let go of Himself, he died on the cross.
That is when the veil in the Temple was torn.
“Then Jesus shouted out again, and he released his spirit. At that moment the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom…” —Matthew 27:50-51
The cross was not a pleasant experience. It was painful. It meant suffering and death. Yet, that is the place God did his greatest work.
And that’s where He’ll do His greatest work in us—when we let go of ourselves and stop trying to find out who we are. Instead, we spend our days searching the Word to find out more about who He is.
Pick Up Your Cross
This is what it means to pick up our cross:
We must be willing to walk where Jesus walked,
To go the way of suffering,
To push on—even when we don’t know the outcome.
God does the rest.
“We grope and totter [in this life] and make countless mistakes until we learn to mistrust ourselves and to put all our confidence in Him.” —Jean Nicholas Grou
Take a moment to sit before the Lord and ask Him to reveal where self has been taking up too much space. Ask Him to show you not just who you are—but who He is. Pray for God to help you let go of yourself and learn how to follow Him in trust and obedience.