Just Be Yourself

Recently I attended a women’s retreat that focused on the issue of our identity in Christ. This topic has the potential to be a bit to “Christian cliché” for me, but I discovered some gems of truth I thought worthy of sharing.

We tend to wrap our identity around what we DO instead of who we ARE. This is such an easy mistake to make, especially when what you do seems so very important or all-consuming. On my good days, I see motherhood this way – as the most important thing any woman could do, and, on any day, my life confirms that is truly is all-consuming. On a bad day, I forget to value motherhood and therefore, feel unimportant, insignificant and stagnant.

Therein lies the horrible consequence of finding our identity in our activity. If your activity doesn’t measure up to some standard (be it a reasonable expectation or not) you suddenly loose value as a person and start on a slippery slope that ends somewhere around “why the heck am I here?” and “what’s the point of living?”

No. Our identity has NOTHING to do with how we spend our days on earth. Identity attempts to define something more hidden, a magical part of us that makes us who we are, the essence of our being.

When we acknowledge Christ as Lord and make the choice to follow him, something tremendous happens to our identity. It becomes the very identity of Christ himself.

Don’t skim that. Read it again. Your identity is that of Jesus Christ. There are many verses that support this: God made you alive in Christ; your life is now hidden with Christ in God, you also will appear with him in glory; to live is Christ and to die is gain; if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation.

In the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples he advises us to pray “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” In the past, as I have prayed these words, I have thought “big picture” – let there be peace on earth, good will towards men kind of thoughts. But when you bring this down to a personal level, there is an amazing truth to cherish. In heaven, you are, and I am, already in Glory with Christ. I don’t mean once my physical body dies. I mean right now. When I chose Christ, I chose His Identity as my own, from that point on for all eternity.

Do you know what this means? Right now, as I write, God is seeing me through the filter of Jesus Christ. What does this filter provide? It provides God the ability to see me as all the things I wish I was or know I need to be. Wish I was more patient? In God’s eyes, I already am full to overflowing with patience. Focusing on all may faults as a wife, as a mother as a daughter (in-law especially right now) ? In the eyes of God, I am an amazing mother – the best mother in the world for the children He has granted me. I am the perfect fit for my husband – bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. And in God’s opinion, I am the Ruth (of Ruth and Naomi) to Terry – her family against all odds.

Don’t leave the reading of this without taking a moment to apply this to your own life. What do you wish you were? What failure do you see in your life that nags you time and time again? Take a moment to see what God sees. He sees Christ! He sees the most beautiful, beloved daughter – a princess through and through – who lives in the absolute perfection of her Savoir, Jesus Christ. When you live with this identity of yourself, you are suddenly transformed – you find the strength to be all that you want and wish you could be.

GO BE IT. (You already are!)