What is our go-to response when people ask us who we are? We are Christ’s. That’s who we are. We have nothing to prove because we’ve been proven.
What defines us as people? Is it our social status? Our hobbies? Our jobs or grades? Personally, I’m going to have to say no. I think we all know, at least somewhere in our heads, these things do not define us. We hear it all the time…
You’re more than their opinion of you. – or – You aren’t the clothes you wear.
What are we trying to prove by presenting our best, outward selves? We are not defined by material things, but what are we defined by? There are so many things each of us could say if someone were to ask Who are you? Let’s journey through my most recent identity crisis. My hope is that what I’ve learned will bring a new, possibly clearer view of who and whose you are.
A Trip To Finding Myself
Some of you may be familiar with Young Life. For those of you who are not, the best way I can describe it is to call it a school-based youth group. Their main focus is to penetrate the teenage mind and introduce Christ to the terrifying mob often referred to as high schoolers.
The weekend of December 7th, I went on a retreat with Young Life and had a radical, unexpected transformation. Towards the end of the weekend, the speaker told all 400 of us the story of Christ’s resurrection. I’ve heard this story all my life and in all honesty, I hadn’t genuinely expected to get a lot out of the weekend aside from good reminders. I was so wrong.
Not Listening
For every-single-one of the 17 years I’ve been on this great green earth, I’ve been comparing myself and setting unrealistic standards for how I live my life. This is a natural thing all human beings experience. My problem is that I preach the answer to anyone and everyone undergoing the same issue. I’m always saying things like…
Stop looking at yourself through their eyes.
You are yours before you are anyone else’s.
But I’m just gonna come out and say it, I don’t listen to anyone when they tell me the same. Not my family, friends, or even myself. We’re told that without Christ nothing is possible and that we do not have to heal ourselves before going to the doctor. I’ve never been able to apply that.
Spoken For; Proven
The speaker told us all to get out and talk to God. While sitting all by myself in below freezing weather for 15 minutes, I had a life-altering moment…
I am spoken for, I am justified, I don’t have to prove myself to anyone. Not people in my 6th-period class, not the people I went on that retreat with. I don’t have to prove myself to my church or my family. I don’t even have to prove myself to myself because I have been proven in Christ.
Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts, cried out, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him, but I know him because I am from him and he sent me.”
John 7:28-29, NIV
We are spoken for, justified, chosen. We don’t have to prove ourselves to anyone, not even to ourselves. We have been proven in Christ Jesus. Click To Tweet
Not Alone
I am not here on my own. What a great reassurance that we are not alone! When I find myself using earthly things to define myself, it gets lonely. That’s like trying to trust our entire lives in a human being’s hands; we will fail. It is human to make mistakes. We have to put everything in Christ. Our trust, our love, and our identity.
Who are you? What are you letting the world say about you and how much of it are you believing?
Who am I? Well, I’m Anna. I’m 17 years old. I’ve not yet reached the glorious height of 5 feet tall, I’m from Kentucky, and I love music and art. Above all else, I am a daughter of Christ. I have been chosen and I have eternal life with the Holy One.
For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him. He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
Ephesians 1:4-5, CSB
