What thing is more powerful for each of us personally than our identity? The fear of being “Insignificant” is so powerful in humanity that we spend much of our day presumably protecting, bolstering, manipulating and or advertising our Identity so that it is strong enough to support our vulnerable ego and the assaults found within society.
For example
Work and Job:
Most of us spend 8 hours or more each day DOING a job. We are evaluated, judged by performance, rewarded with money and accolades and or fired from these life-giving jobs. It is no wonder that our Identity can be wrapped up in them to a level of measuring our self-importance by them.
The problem is, as much value as we may receive from our position and title at work, it is never enough to sustain our fragile ego because
WE ARE NOT WHAT WE DO FOR A LIVING
Mother or Father
We hope to have a mom and dad. We hope that they will love us for the offspring that we are.
But what if their love for us is tainted or immature? What if they were/are still trying to “find themselves”–discover their own identity? What if their parents failed to love them as we all hope a parent will do?
Even if their love for us reigns supreme, is their love for us to define us?
A lot of questions there but it all goes to remind us that, no matter their love for us
WE ARE NOT THAT LOVE (or absence of love)
Social Status and Possessions
After childhood, youth and young adulthood, most of us have seen a commercial or two. Capitalism demands our attention. Capitalism knows that our egos are often weak and fragile. Money talks to us at our most vulnerable side. Add to that the whole media potential of Hollywood and the Popular Music Industry.
They all would like to define our IDENTITY and they do on a regular basis. They have turned what should be individualism into Consensus Packaging. They want to punish all offenders who will not kowtow and bow to their culture by conformity. The fear of being left out or unpopular is what they hope to use in capturing us to their cause and brand.
Here are some examples of how we often listen to them and conform: (not to say that all these are bad)
–hair style and clothing
-tattoos and piercings
-what you drive
-where you live
-who likes you and who doesn’t
-what title your job carries
Can you remember when it became fashionable to be “Identified” with:
1-Divorced
2-The ADD – OCD brands
3-Vegan
4-Climate
5-LGBTQ
All these are merely external, benign assignments that have no potential of “making you somebody”. What they can and will do is steal your Identity while pretending to be one.
What we own and who society says we can be are closely linked. These are powerful image-setters and markers.
They have the backing of billions of dollars and when it comes to “buying us” they do know what they are doing.
They are professional you might say at manipulating our egos and telling us when and why we may not like ourselves. They have become the purveyors of truth and all things good.
Problem is, our identity is not a brand or a quantity of things.
WE ARE NOT THE SUM OF OUR POSSESSIONS and
WE ARE NOT A SLOGAN OR A SOCIAL CAUSE.
Sexual Expression
Trying to make sex, sexual preferences, gender or any mix of all this, into a viable human identity is like defining your car by its transmission, color of interior and speed potential. You can do it, but it makes no matter. How a person chooses to have sex or with whom is an activity, not an Identity. LGBTQ are adverbs as they relate to us. They describe what we do, not who we are.—THEY ARE NOT NOUNS.
This explains why when everyone goes home from the fun Identity Parade, everything falls back into reality.
This explains how and why people can chose to “Identify” as something they can never be simply because they FEEL a particular way.
No matter, depression, shame and guilt are heightened when reality is rebuffed, and fantasy is revered.
It is a serious error when WE SEEK TO MAKE OUR IDENTITY HAVING TO DO WITH AN ACTIVITY, sexual or otherwise. It is a harmful error to identify as something or someone that your are not based on feelings and desires that are contrary. Denying science and truth while elevating falsehoods does not have a happy ending. For example,
“‘Sex change’ is biologically impossible. People who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women.”
–Dr. Paul McHugh
WE ARE NOT WHAT WE DO FOR PLEASURE or what brings us delight.
Identity steals our identity when who we are is no longer about truth and reality. Now it is a pitch, sale and manipulation that we apply to the surface as a reflection of who someone else needs us to be for their pleasure. If we buy into this, no wonder we become depressed, nihilistic, narcissistic and jaded. No wonder we need drugs and therapy just to struggle through a day. Americans represent 10 percent of the world’s populations yet have over 50% of the worlds psychologist, psychiatrists and counselors–same for drug consumption.
WHO AM I THEN?
Who I am is predetermined and fixed as it relates to eternity.
Who I am is malleable as it relates to this present world and what people want me to be for their pleasure, success and advancement.
Who I am becomes who I am not when I listen to the wrong advertisement.
Basically, if it is Hollywood or sold on TV, I am but a pawn to their causes if I allow it.
_______________
When a guy spins his webs of deceit for the girl with lines and hooks, she does have a choice. But, if he is just “too good looking” or “too wealthy” for her maturity and she bites the bait and is hooked anyhow, might she learn about her true IDENTITY by being bitten with male deceit?
When a girl flashes her femaleness at the young impressionable fellow as if to say, “who you are can be raised from nobody to somebody, but not without my permission” and he takes the lure, might he be in for a surprise about his immaturity and lack of real IDENTITY?
WHO AM I THEN?
Origins matter. Better get this one foundation right or nothing else works.
Am I an object of care and love by design? For what purpose do I exist?
Or
Am I a blob of flesh with no rhyme or reason for existence other than to promote myself into significance because of what I do, who I hang with, how much I own or how I view pleasure and sex?
Or
Must I have the applause and approval of others before I am free to be me?
Perhaps you have grown weary of all the futile attempts at becoming significant on the world’s terms?
WHAT MAKES ME SIGNIFICANT AS A PERSON?
Origins matter. Better get this one foundation right or nothing else works.
Please consider that there is a God who created you and me.
If this is true, then our purpose for existence has nothing to do with our station in life. Rather, our purpose defines it and pronounces it full of potential, wealth (not money) and fulfillment.
CONSIDER:
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nation.” (Jeremiah 1:5)
“For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works and that my soul knows well.” (Psalm 139:13)
“Know that the Lord Himself is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture.” (Psalm 100:3).
Find your own connection with the God who created you by seeking Him and by finding Him to be the only source for true IDENTITY AND SIGNIFICANCE.
HERE HE IS:
3 There was a man named Nicodemus who was a Pharisee and a Jewish leader. One night he went to Jesus and said, “Sir, we know that God has sent you to teach us. You could not work these miracles, unless God were with you.”
3 Jesus replied, “I tell you for certain that you must be born from above before you can see God’s kingdom!”
4 Nicodemus asked, “How can a grown man ever be born a second time?”
5 Jesus answered:
I tell you for certain that before you can get into God’s kingdom, you must be born not only by water, but by the Spirit. Humans give life to their children. Yet only God’s Spirit can change you into a child of God. Don’t be surprised when I say that you must be born from above. Only God’s Spirit gives new life. The Spirit is like the wind that blows wherever it wants to. You can hear the wind, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going.
9 “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
10 Jesus replied:
How can you be a teacher of Israel and not know these things? I tell you for certain that we know what we are talking about because we have seen it ourselves. But none of you will accept what we say. If you don’t believe when I talk to you about things on earth, how can you possibly believe if I talk to you about things in heaven?
13 No one has gone up to heaven except the Son of Man, who came down from there. And the Son of Man must be lifted up, just as that metal snake was lifted up by Moses in the desert. Then everyone who has faith in the Son of Man will have eternal life.
16 God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life and never really die. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn its people. He sent him to save them! No one who has faith in God’s Son will be condemned. But everyone who doesn’t have faith in him has already been condemned for not having faith in God’s only Son.
19 The light has come into the world, and people who do evil things are judged guilty because they love the dark more than the light. People who do evil hate the light and won’t come to the light, because it clearly shows what they have done. But everyone who lives by the truth will come to the light, because they want others to know that God is really the one doing what they do.” John 3:1-24
_______________________________________________
openhandspublications.com 