Identity

 My ministry, my grades, my service, my exercise, my diet, my activities, my relationships...I think all of it, at the deepest level is crying out because there is an identity crisis going on in my heart. My identity is summed in his love. But the nature of sin is that I have chosen to separate myself and seek identity elsewhere. And its killing me. I'm going against what it means to be human by putting my identity in what others think, in measurements of success, in my day to day schedule. I know who Jesus is. I know that he died just for me. I know that life is only in Him. But my heart forgets. Every. Day. Every single day of my life, this world wants me to believe that its a lie, just like satan wanted eve to believe that God was lying to her. The world and satan both say "He's lying. He doesn't really love you just as you are." Or, "He will love you more if you do this." Or "his love isn't as real as stuff here."

He'd never lie to us.

But we are told that every day. Don't underestimate the attack you are under. Don't think your life is easy. Being human is real hard. Because we are separated from our identity.  When I start to read about the fact that he wants to tell me who I am, my heart starts to ache and its like peeling layers of hardness and walls off of a calloused heart. Its okay to have a broken heart.
I used to think that my irritation with people was just normal. But there is something serious going on. Because when I take the time to see how he loves me, I look at people and I just love them. Because I have nothing to hide and nothing to be strong about and no matter what they are like I know they are just like me and in need of tons and tons of grace. But usually I look at people and I rate them and I compare myself to them and I criticize them and I compete with them and I take joy in their struggle and brokenness. And I know thats terrible but I think maybe we are all doing the same thing and no one wants to tell anybody how terrible their heart really is. But we've got to bring it to the light because in the light is where healing starts. Lets go into a little about the identity Christ offers so that we don't keep clinging to the darkness..

When we are insecure about our own identities, we deprive other people of theirs to buttress our own, Parker Palmer said. Identity does not depend on the role we play or the power it gives over others. It depends on the fact that we are children of God, valued in and for ourselves. More than anything else we want to know who we are. We want to know that who we are is okay. We were made for Him and He's the only one who knows who we are because he made us. And He's the only one who can tell us that not only is who we are okay but that it is perfect. No one else can. Even if they wanted to. And no one else wants to because their ultimate concern is who they are. So we all wander anxiously through life, dying to know who we are and that we are beautiful and begging everyone and everything to tell us that its true and its a huge tragedy really. But thats not the end of the story because God can tell us and he wants to tell us and he is pursuing us endlessly and doing everything he can to tell us. But the question is how do know? How can we be sure? And the answer is

Christ.

We are his Beloved. I promise. You are loved deeper and more passionately than you will ever know and you have been loved with an infinite amount of love before you were born and until after you die and the love never fluctuates. It never lessens and it never rises. It just is. If I don't relearn this every day its inevitable that I will devour the flock God has entrusted to me and destroy my little field I am toiling and harvesting in. Because I will seek my identity from the state of my flock and the size of my harvest. And I will be using it for my own gain and worth and identity.

Here is one last prayer I stumbled upon on about who we are and how to love others and their unique identity..

You have been dreaming of me Lord
Thinking of me, loving me. 
I am the first one so made and the last, 
indispensable to humanity. 
You have an eternal plan for me alone
Give me the grace to discover and to live what you have dreamed for me. 
Lord, living in your grace, let me share a little, through the attention I give to others, 
your loving care for us. 
Let me, on my knees, adore in them the mystery of your created love. 
Let me respect your idea of them without trying to impose my own. 
May I allow them to follow the path that you have marked out for them without trying to take them along mine. 
May I realize that they are indispensable to the world and that I cant do without the least of them. 
May I never tire of looking at them and enriching myself with the treasures you have entrusted to them. 
Help me to praise you in their journeyings, to find you in their lives.