Identity IS everything; i.e. our view of God and our view of ourselves impacts everything we do, say and think.
When we choose to say “yes” to God, we choose a road filled with struggle and pain, but one where transformation is allowed to move us from crawling to soaring. If we choose the road of control and self-protection, it is not as narrow, but in the end it is lonely and the lies that we will never be worthy of love or belonging remain embedded in our souls.
From the fall of man, identity was threatened and man was distracted from the “one thing” that gave them significance. As the curse fell upon Adam and the woman (later named Eve by her husband) God said to the woman, “Your desire shall be for your husband” and to Adam, “Cursed is the ground and in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life.”
Remember…these things were as a result of the curse.
It’s interesting that today most women are asking the question, “Do you know me; i.e. understand me?” While, most men are asking the question, “Do I have what it takes?”
Then as we continue on our search for significance and our pursuit of love and belonging, we try to find the answers through the filter of the curse…
…Women look to their husbands (and other significant relationships) to answer the question of identity. If they’re okay, then we’re okay; but if they’re not okay, then we have somehow failed and therefore, lost significance. Remember, the exploration for identity is interwoven into our spirits, like a homing device bringing us back into relationship with God. But through the filter of the curse, when women are not known, we grow in resentment and bitterness and begin to close our hearts to significant others when they cannot answer our internal question. For men, through the filter, they look to the “labor of their hands”. They work and earn and strive to answer the question, “Do I have what it takes?” but the ground cannot answer sufficiently. The ground cries out, “You are never enough; if only they knew the fears and insecurities within your soul, you would be disqualified.” The ground will never produce the answer that is held only in the heart of the Father.
Identity can only be answered in One place. Jesus knew this truth and that is why He said that Mary of Bethany had chosen the “one thing” that truly mattered. He knew that her discovery of Him would answer her deepest hearts cry and bring rest to her soul.
Before the fall and the curse, there was rest and complete satisfaction and belonging in the love, relationship and unity that existed between God and man.
Jesus… (Selah; I love that name)… came to restore us back to the Father. He did that by becoming a curse for us (Gal. 3:13). He did that by completing everything necessary to remove anything that would separate us from this love. Then in the last line of His last prayer before He hung on a cross, He asked His Father if we could experience the same love that existed between them (Jn. 17:26). What does it look like to release the the thing that gives you life? I am not saying leave that relationship or job, but what if we could turn our internal heart cry from those places to the Father? What might shift?
Identity is everything. Your search for significance, love and belonging will never be settled until you discover the one thing. My prayer is that you will take the narrow road. It is not an easy road. Actually, it is most likely a road where suffering is yours in abundance…
Phil. 3:8-12 “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith — that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings becoming like Him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”