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Writer's pictureMiranda Lewis

Identity

                                      Galatians 4:7 | You are free

False identities are limitless and easy to embrace. The world tells us that we can embrace any identity we want. As a result, we settle on identities usually based on our performance and/or appearance: successful, competent, polished, and popular.

Most of the time, we’re able to maintain these false identities. I generally show up on time. I prepare well and usually do a pretty good job. But sometimes I fail, and when I do, that identity cracks, and it can feel like I’ve lost everything.” (Dash, 2022)


I borrowed an excerpt from Dash’s article, “Our True Identity, Finding Our Identity in Christ”. And it was one, solitary statement that struck me profoundly, “…sometimes I fail, and when I do, that identity cracks, and it can feel like I’ve lost everything.”  What a bold and honest statement about how we feel in our identity or what we have identified with. And how much of our inner turmoil, our outward reactions, our emotional struggle and mental baggage hinges on the identity we have adopted or tried to identify with rather than our true identity?


In 1985, a Dartmouth University study was conducted by Robert Kleck to analyze the effects of facial scars or disfigurement in a job interview. Except the study was not necessarily about the interviewer responding to a facial disfigurement. It was however, about the way people interpreted communication, feedback and actions toward them in the job interview setting when they believed they had a scarring or disfigurement.

To begin the study, the subjects were brought into a room and shown several photographs of real people who had similar facial disfigurements. This initial part of the experiment served multiple purposes. At the least, it would set the stage by exposing the subjects to their own feelings, biases, and judgements in their responses to such pictures. The subjects were then asked a series of questions about what they believed or perceived would be the evidence of discrimination or even response to their own facial scarring. In other words, how would they know that the interviewer would be negatively responding to the scarring? Their responses were focused around the lack of verbal comments or response rather than actual verbal response. The subjects believed that if someone didn’t verbally respond by mentioning the scarring then that would be the negative response. They also answered that observing the interviewer’s gaze pattern would indicate their feelings to seeing such disfigurement. In summary, to those people, the real judgment would be in the things that were not said in addition to the ways in which the interviewer looked at them.

                                                                                    2 Corinthians 5:17 | You are a new person

The next stage of the study was executed as the subjects were given cosmetically applied scarring and were allowed to see their own scarring in a mirror prior to the interview. They were then allowed to go into the interview. Upon completion of the interview, the subjects all had similar responses. Most of the subjects reported that the feedback they received was nonverbal and negative. They also reported that the interviewer offered negative nonverbal communication in the form of gazing at the scar and also in their failure to mention it. All subjects reported that there was noticeable bias and negative feedback.

However, the results were fabricated based off of the subject’s own bias, and ultimately their own identity. As it turns out, immediately prior to the actual interview their stage makeup that created the scarring was actually “touched up” and removed completely. As they entered the interview the subjects had no scarring whatsoever. Which means that their so-called negative feedback was simply a product of their own mind and seen through the lens of their own projection and self-confidence.  


As I read through the study I begin to think about the times I have viewed someone’s reactions, communications,, or behavior through the lens of my own identity and self knowledge. I view those interactions through the filter of what I believe to be true about myself whether that is my background, my mistakes, successes, failures, things that happened TO me, and even my thoughts. And how far back does the pattern go? How many times have I filtered my world through the lens of the labels and identity I gave myself or I simply allowed? And the answer is, more than I want to admit.

                                                                                        Genesis 1:27 | You are made in God’s image

I was recently contacted by someone who felt the need to remind me of some mistakes I made many years ago. Upon questioning this person, they quickly retreated with this statement, “Oh, I didn’t mean to send that to you”, which immediately led to more questions. The first question was, “Why are you sending this to me?” And the second question was, “If it wasn’t meant for me, then who was it meant for?” The truth, in whatever fashion it happened, was meant to be a reminder to me about my wrongs as well as an unspoken reminder that it hasn’t been forgotten, and apparently, not forgiven. And it had the desired effect, I admit. Immediately, I was filled with memories, thoughts, self-berating statements of my failures. That hit-and-run tactic to mentally derail me worked.

Days later, God’s truth spoke through me. God began to remind me that either I am forgiven through Jesus Christ, or God is a liar. And I couldn’t choose both of those options. I had to either accept forgiveness or I had to admit that God had lied to me. And if I didn’t want to claim that God was a liar, then why was I willing to accept an identity that was not mine? I believe this was a turning point in my life, and in my journey overall. Was I willing to accept truth? If I was, and if I wanted to walk in the steps that God has laid out for me, then I had to relinquish any identity that did not belong to me, no matter who wanted me to wear it.

                                                                 Galatians 3:13 | You are rescued

This moment of truth did not come in gentle prayers as I talked with God. It did not come in tears of more regret and guilt while I sat in a corner to hide from my decisions. It could have, it certainly could have. But rather it came in sudden fury, and rebellion, and the heart of a woman who knew the truth and was ready to accept it, run to it, and grab hold of it. How often have we looked to the world to tell us who we are, to wait for their approval or disproval, acceptance or rejection, love or hate? How often have we allowed the voice of others to lay the fabric of guilt, shame and sin on us like a blanket that is meant to suffocate us? And if we internalize that question, how often have we handed down a judgment that wasn’t ours to make? How often have we spread the sins of others to carry a conversation forward? How often have we relayed information that breaks people down rather than builds them up? And how often have WE laid the blanket upon someone as well?


Whatever the case, no matter your faults, your sins, your iniquities, your past, your bloodline, you are a new creation in Christ. When you accepted Christ, your entire being was purchased for a heavy price, a very heavy price. Your heart was made new, and God identified you with HIM, and no one else. And ever since that moment, Satan has tried to rip the identity from you. He has tried to erase the signature of God on your soul, doing everything in his power to make you identify with everything that is NOT of God – because imagine the power you would have if your identity rested ONLY in the One who created you, and ONLY in the One who saved you, and ONLY in the One who bought your sin.

                                                                            Exodus 19:5 | You are treasured by God      

I spent a few days in the aftermath of that hurtful text thinking about the intent behind it. I tossed the idea back and forth between my hands for days before deciding that I actually didn’t have to have an opinion on it, at all. It actually didn’t require my anger, my guilt, or another round of asking for forgiveness. It didn’t require me to hold the burden like an anchor or drag it around with me like a heavy chain. All I had to with it was to not identify with it. And I reminded myself of something I had read years ago about Satan’s attack strategy on us. Satan wants to keep us in a perpetual cycle of asking God for forgiveness, as though we don’t accept or receive that forgiveness the first time. He wants us to believe that we must constantly ask God for forgiveness as though God would withhold that forgiveness until He feels as though we have punished ourselves enough. But that is not scriptural nor is it the nature of our Father.


If we are born again through the sacrifice of Christ, we have accepted God as our father, admitted that we are guilty of sin, and told through scripture that our debt of sin was fully paid, then why would we continue to carry it around? Why would we identify with it?

I ask you today to decide who you are identifying with.  Because whatever spirit you are identifying with will speak through you. It will speak on your behalf and expose the unhealed wounds in your heart. But more than that, when you identify with something or someone that isn’t Godly then you will see everything around you, including yourself, through the lens of that spirit. And if we agree to identify with the things not of God, then we have rejected the identity of Christ Himself and His death for us.  We are so very beautifully human. And looking at ourselves through the lens of God is still subject to humanity, human emotions, and human experience. But if we choose that - we see underserved grace, unmerited mercy, pure forgiveness that no amount of money or power can possibly buy.

                                   John 1:12 | You are a child of God

Imagine the depth of love, grace and mercy you have for your own children. Imagine the lengths you would go to secure their release from captivity, to pay their debt from a sin punishable by death, to secure their identity in love. Imagine how much it would hurt to see them walk away from that. But also, imagine how heartbreaking it would be to know that your children only saw themselves through the eyes of their mistakes. If I can imagine the love I have for my children, how easily I would sacrifice my life for theirs without a thought, how instantly I would forgive their mistakes through undiluted love – then I can also imagine how important it would be for them to live in freedom, grace and forgiveness.


When Jesus bought our sin, He did not tell us to continue to walk in it. When He purchased our freedom with His life, He did not ask us to remain in the prison cell of our sin or shame. And when we continue to identify with that past, that sin, that lie, that brokenness, that “disfigurement”, that unforgiveness, we take away the holiness of what Christ did for us. We defy the promises God gave us. And we reject the signature of God on our entire being. If we rely on our performance, our outward appearance, or our inner unhealed wounds, then we will always crack and fail in knowing and seeing our true identity.


Walk in confidence and authority with your new identity. There will be people you meet that need the redemption in you. And they’ll recognize you by your freedom, not your prison. They’ll recognize your identity in Christ, not the world. Be the YOU that Christ purchased, because the people that God is bringing into your life will need to know your freedom story. And it will take your true identity to share it.

                                                                             Romans 15:7 | You are accepted



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