I sat at a coffee shop the other day and struck up a conversation with a lovely woman. After speaking for a while, she told me her story. She had lost her only two children and her husband. Her first daughter died at 18 in a car accident and her second at 38 from cancer. Her husband died suddenly the year after. She described to me her loss of identity.
She said she was no longer a mother and no longer a wife and she struggled to find who she was under the curtain of her circumstances. Her losses left her feeling void of the woman she had been most of her life. So…. she felt like she could barely keep her head above water. She was left searching. Searching for a new identity. Searching for God.
I am sure there are many of us, including myself, where some kind of pain or trauma has caused us to feel the loss of identity.
After I listened, I told her she didn’t need to search for anything. Just to open her eyes.
Psalm 119:18. “Open my eyes, that I may behold wonderful things from your law.”
“Christian selfhood is not defined in terms of who we are in and of ourselves. It’s defined in terms of what God does to us and the relationship he creates with us and the destiny he appoints for us. God made us who we are, so we could make known who he is. Our identity is for the sake of making known his identity.”
At the heart of what it means to be a Christian is to receive a new identity. In Jesus, we do not lose our true selves, but we become our true selves, only in him. We have a new belonging in Jesus.
Christ is our life — not only the guarantee of it in heaven, but the down payment of it by the Spirit now, as He lives in us. His joy becomes our joy; His love, our love; His peace, our peace; His strength, our strength.
In Christ, we are fundamentally new and belong to the people of heaven. The language and values and customs and expectations of this world increasingly feel foreign to us. We have been born again for another world, to a greater kind of existence.
If we have peace with God, then we have nothing to fear on this earth. Our eternities are secure as adopted daughters of Christ. So, we don’t need to fear. We can have confidence that our Heavenly Father is sovereign over every moment of our life and will equip us for everything He ordains.
He bought us with the blood of his own Son so that we could claim our identity in the righteousness of Christ. We can trust that He will provide us with everything else that we need in this world. Our identity in Christ has given us direct access to our Heavenly Father, who we can call on with confidence and complete trust.
If our identity is in Christ, then we are guaranteed that one day we will identify with him in his sufferings. Just as Christ’s sufferings were not hopeless and wasted, neither will ours be. Christ’s sufferings defeated sin and death, and therefore we identify with Him as He uses suffering to put sin to death in us, to make us reflect more of Him. Not only does suffering sanctify us, but it assures us that, after suffering with Him for a while, we will one day be glorified with Him and all we be Holy and Beautiful.
• Sarah Walton
This theme of suffering has been a familiar one for me over the last several years. While I will be the first to say that they have been some of the hardest years of my life, I can also say they have been some of the best. Everyone suffers, but can everyone look back at their suffering with thankfulness and joy because of it?
God told me on a recent trip when I was all alone this very thing. He told me to not lose my joy. He told me to trust. He told me He was walking with me.
My message for you is that Only those with the hope of Christ can do this. There is no good that comes from suffering if we are apart from Christ.
However, I can attest to the truth that the more I have let go of what I thought I wanted, the more I have found joy and treasure in what only Christ could have done through the pain He has ordained in my life. Suffering gradually changes our earthly perspective into an eternal one.
We can spend our lives fearing pain and suffering, or we can thank God for the times of reprieve. Then we can trust the seasons of suffering to Christ’s great purpose in our lives: to identify with and become more like him.
You will overcome all things—I am with you. Place My armor on your soul and go forth to see your enemies vanquished. Wear My righteousness over your heart and My delivering power on your mind. My good news will be your shoes, My truth will keep you strong, and My sword of power will energize your every step.
EPHESIANS 6:10–11 (TP)
Now my beloved ones, I have saved these most important truths for last: Be supernaturally infused with strength through your life-union with the Lord Jesus. Stand victorious with the force of His explosive power flowing in and through you. Put on the full suit of armor that God wears when He goes into battle, so you will be protected as you fight against the evil strategies of the accuser!
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on Holy Beautiful Life
Featured Image by congerdesign from Pixabay
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