Who Am I?

What we term the holiday season—Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s—brings much joy, but can also usher in heartache we have managed to squelch the rest of the year. Instead of focusing on our blessings, perhaps depression settles in because of losses we have suffered.

This depression can very well be linked to how we view ourselves—our identity. The world, our environment, may look at us and say, “You are a teacher or a housewife, or a miner.” In other words, we are identified by our job or career.

There’s the aspect of relationship in identity—you are a spouse, or a parent or a child. Perhaps a friend or fiancé.

When something happens to change what we consider our identity, depression may well become part of our life. We lose a parent, a spouse, a child, a friend, or a job. Even our health can be an identifier.

We describe ourselves as unemployed, chronically ill, a widow/widower, divorcee, an orphan.

Our pastor gave such a great lesson on identity recently. He said, “Never base your identity on something you can lose.”

We can lose family members, relationships, jobs, health, beauty and brawn. But the one constant we can never lose is God’s unconditional love. Once we have given ourselves to Him and accepted the forgiveness He freely offers because of what Jesus did on the cross for us, we are locked into an identity that will never change. That being a child of the King of kings.

Which brings us back full circle to Christmas and a new year.  In chapter three of the gospel of John, we read in verse 16 that God loved the world (and we can each insert our name in place of “the world”) so much He sent His Son, Jesus into the world so we can live with Him forever.

In that same gospel of John, the very first verse says, “The Word (Jesus) became flesh and lived with us. Jesus loved us so much He was willing to leave the awesome beauty and perfection of heaven to come to earth for thirty plus years and then take the penalty of our sin upon Himself. But it didn’t stop there. He was resurrected—He smashed death so His children no longer needed to fear it.

A child of the King--hat’s an identity to claim with a passion!

The Storm-Calmer

Death—of beloved young people in plane and car crashes, beloved elderly people to disease. Upheaval of families due to depressed financial situations or worse yet, torn apart by divorce. Chronic illness, depression, job stress, relation stressors—all part of the storms of life that come to us at some point just by virtue that we live in a fallen, imperfect world.

A scripture jewel I read and thought about this week was Luke 8:22-25 where Jesus asks His disciples to take Him to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, the obvious and quickest way being by boat. They all piled in and Jesus was soon asleep because He was tired out from teaching and healing a mass of people in the area He was leaving.

A storm arises which is a common occurrence on the Galilee and the wind and rain were about to swamp the boat, drowning all on board. Someone woke Jesus to tell Him about their dire straits. He immediately rose up and rebuked the storm which instantly calmed. Then He turned to His disciples and scolded them a bit by saying essentially, “Where is your faith?” Even though they had seen Him work miracles with food, heal sick and twisted bodies and even raise the dead, they didn’t understand that their Rabbi, was also the Creator of the universe—so nothing was impossible for Him to do.

As I read this scripture, I was so grateful for the analogy between that storm the disciples were dealing with there on the Sea of Galilee and the storms of life that we have to deal with during our life here on planet Earth.

As Sarah Young aptly wrote, we are so prone to try to fix problems when our abilities are actually very limited. Changing our top priority from trying to fix problems to seeking such a close relationship with the Lord that we are able to see His perspective on the matter makes all the difference. David shared what the Lord told him in Psalm 32:8, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you and watch over you.”

Praise God—the same Jesus Who calmed the Galilee is also able to calm the turbulent waters in our lives.