Remember the days when we were kids and would day dream about who we'd become when we grew up? A doctor, an astronaut.. I wanted to be an Opera singer. Let me tell you the only one who is enjoying my singing is Jesus!
If we aren’t being told who we should be, we're at the least hearing we should be somebody. Think about it: “who do you want to be when you grow up” was our earliest introduction into a performance-based life. Of course we need goals and dreams, but when the emphasis for our worth is put on WHAT we do instead of WHO we are, our achievements and our resumes become the basis for our acceptance, validation and significance. And so it begins…
What’s the danger in it anyway? Unfortunately, often if we aren’t confident in our true identity, which is found in Christ, the world has a plethora of false identities it will lure you into. All so it can classify you, categorize you, and then eventually tell you if you are good enough. Not having the foundation of your identity firmly rooted in Jesus leads to comparisons and competition, then perpetuates fear due to insecurity and doubt.
Never before have we had the "opportunity" (thank you social media) to see how everyone else is doing using the facebook highlight real and the filter-rich instagram posts as a measuring stick. Even if we can escape the comparison and competition trap, the failure snare is sure to get us. This is what the enemy uses to ensure our doom. Messed up again. Didn’t get it right. Didn’t do as well as others. Struggled. We're failures as moms, dads friends, employees, bosses, athletes, students, whatever. If our identity is found in what we do, instead of who God made us to be, we are all in serious trouble.
Thankfully our identity isn’t tied to our performance, our titles, our activities, relationship status, having kids or not, it's not tied to our defeats, our accomplishments or even our sexualities. It's tied to God alone.
It is interesting to note, that when God created the earth, there is this refrain He repeats at the end of day of creation. It says, "And there was evening and there was morning..." Have you ever stopped and wondered why God would put evening first? It makes more sense to say, "there was morning and there was evening." But this wasn't a haphazard mistake. God intentionally put evening first. In the Jewish culture, their Sabbath (called Shabbat), begins in the evening and not in the morning. Why is this so significant? If you think waaaay back to who would have been the first people hearing the creation story, it would have been the Israelites who were just rescued out of Egypt. Moses would have recounted this story to them, with the important of their day beginning in the evening. What do you do in the evening? I know it isn't' like this for everyone, but most people rest. God wanted the Israelites to start their day with rest. Why? They had just come out of 400 years of being slaves to Pharaoh. Their existence hinged on making bricks. In captivity, their worth was directly tied to their production. God wanted the first lesson they learned to their identity didn't come from what they could do- it came from being His.
God wants us all to experience our worth first and foremost found in being and not doing. So much of who we are is tied to our production, our accolades, our successes, that at the sign of losing a job, a relationship, or having a life changing injury, we often believe we lose the essence of who we are. But through it all God says rest assured you are enough. Rest in the knowing your identity and worth is sealed in Him. Rest.
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth." And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
~Genesis 1:26-28
