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Who I Think I Am Doesn’t Matter

If you will indulge me, I will be honest with you. To say last year brought about a little bit of change would be like saying the Titanic’s first voyage was a bit of disappointment. Or that Tom Brady has found a level of success throwing around a football. Or that millenials communicate better through memes than words.

Yeah, the changes were big. If you weren’t sitting around, just watching me live my life, let me give you the Sparknotes version; My wife and I each got new jobs, after having worked in the same building, together, for 15 years. After a couple of months of unemployment, my wife got a new job at a new church. After a few more months than that, where I dabbled in construction and pretended to enjoy substitute teaching, I got a job in marketing.

All of these changes have left me thinking plenty of thoughts about who I am, what I do, and just how I have come to find myself where I find myself. Be assured, this isn’t about gratitude. I love the story I get to share about how God provided for my family in 2017. But big changes bring with them a disorientation and a questioning of what you thought you knew. About life and about yourself.

I wouldn’t label it a crisis, and you shouldn’t either, but when someone switches career fields after 20 years, it is going to make you ask questions about your identity.

There are parts of my identity which I am glad to bear. Father. Husband. After 2017 and the adventures that came my way, even Working Class Citizen is a label I enjoy applying to myself.

There are others, which I enjoy, but may not want to be solely known for. Basketball player comes to mind. Why? I enjoy the sport. I enjoy playing. The guys I play with have given me a nickname - The Liability. Yes, these are friends...why do you ask?

But if some of the mistakes I’ve made on the court became synonymous with my identity, I’d have to deal with a lot of mocking....ok, a lot more mocking.

Even those parts of my identity that are most meaningful, like being a father and husband, can end up being a negative thing. Mean father. Jerk husband. I’ve been both, but not to the point of being solely known for that. Of course, it depends on the day you ask my children...and my wife.

The only part of my identity that is truly safe and secure from all misunderstanding is being God’s child. I’m forgiven. I’m redeemed. I’m called for a purpose. (Connect to recent thoughts from Colossians) 

What have you been called? What have you called yourself? Consider the adjectives that you might couple with those labels. It would be really easy to hear you're a child of God and immediately think, undeserving child.

While that may be accurate, it's not how God sees us. He simply calls us His own. If it's good enough for Him, then it's good enough for me. 
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