Identity

Where do you put your identity?  This is a question that's been on my mind a lot lately.  Lots of things have been driving me to ask this question.  It's amazing how often the question of identity comes to the forefront in different places in life.

When we meet people, one of the first questions that we ask them is, "What do you do?"  Identity is often found in our job or occupation.  We ask each other where we are from or where we went to school.  We find identity in the places from where we come.  We find identity in the things that we do and the accomplishments that we have made.

Sometimes, we find our identity in our family of origin.  This was the case with me when I had my first real identity crisis.  For years, I had grown up as the pastor's kid, Tony's son.  Everyone knew my dad and associating myself with him was an easy connection for many people.  They immediately knew who he was and could make the association quickly.

The problem was, in my efforts to make those connections and associations, I lost my own identity.  I remember introducing myself to people who I had recently met through InterVarsity as, "Jon, my father is a pastor."  It wasn't until a few years later that I realized the ramifications of those statements and introductions.

In reflecting on this with a friend, I was unpacking it all out loud.  We threw ideas and thoughts back and forth until finally, one of said, "As believers in Christ, if we put our identity in anything other than Christ, it can be taken away.  But nothing can take Christ away from us."  Reminds me of Paul's words at the end of Romans 8.  What can separate us from the love of God?  Nothing.

If we are followers of Christ, we can put our identity in a lot of good things.  Our families.  Our churches.  Our worship styles.  But those things, as good as they might be, are not the best thing to put our identities in.  They can easily be taken away.  And when they are stripped away from us, what is left of our identity when it has been steeped in these things?  What are we left holding?

Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 5:17 speak this loudly.  We are new creations in Christ.  The old has passed away.  We have a new identity that cannot be taken away from us.  No one can steal us, there's no fear of identity theft.  We are made new and we have identity protection.

Where do you put your identity?  If it's anything other than Christ, it can easily be taken away and what will you have left when it is?

Room For Doubt

Reading through the Bible, there are books within my own that get a lot of wear and tear.  The Psalms are a constant source of comfort to me.  I find myself in Paul's letters a lot for encouragement and teaching as well.  There are some books within the Bible that, while I don't avoid them, they just don't get a lot of airtime.

A few months ago, I remembered a verse in the book of Jude, a very short 25 verse long book.  A friend had brought one of the verses in Jude to my attention years ago in a conversation.  Jude 3 says, "Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people."  After constantly stumbling upon this verse and remembering our conversation, I was led back to Jude to see what other insights that it might hold.

Over the past few months, I have read through Jude a number of times, at least once a month if not more frequently.  The beauty of Scripture, to me, is that there is new insight to be gleaned every time that I read it.  I am constantly amazed at how I can read something hundreds of time and one day, I read it and notice something that I had never noticed before.

That very thing happened to be this morning as I found myself again reading through Jude.  Jude 22 says, "Be merciful to those who doubt."  I really stopped on that verse and began to think about it.  There is an ancient practice of Scripture reading called Lectio Divina in which the Word of God is read, meditated upon, prayed upon, and then contemplated.  As I read through Jude this morning, I felt like I hit the brakes when I read this verse.  It was a moment for meditation, reflection, and contemplation.

I have wrestled with doubt in my life.  It was far greater when I was younger, but every once in a while, I still find myself having questions and doubts.  They are more to do with what I am doing and where I am going, though the occasional "existence of God" doubts can sometimes take center stage.

This morning as I read through Jude and stumbled upon this verse, I began to think about so many people who had decried doubt as if it were a sin.  As we read through the overall narrative of Scripture, we encounter many people who have had their fair share of doubt.  I recall the man whose son was possessed by a spirit who said to Jesus, "I believe, help my unbelief."  I recall the disciple, Thomas, who needed to put his hands onto the wounds of Jesus after he rose from the dead in order to fully believe.  Those are just two cases, but there were others who doubted, who struggled to hold onto faith.

It is a myth to say that the Christian life is all rainbows and roses.  While some may criticize me for having a "doom and gloom" approach towards life with a statement like that, I'm only basing it on what Jesus said to his followers.  He specifically told them that in this world they would have trouble.  He told them that he had been persecuted and they should expect to be persecuted just as he was.  But he never left it there.  When he told them that they would have trouble in this world, he told them that he had overcome the world (John 16:33).

Doubt isn't a bad thing, it's what we do with that doubt.  Do we let it plague us, pull us down, overtake us?  Or do we wrestle with it and seek answers in the midst of it?  Job went through a crisis of faith, rightfully so, who wouldn't experience the depths of loss that he experienced and not go through a crisis of faith?  He eventually heard from God who set him straight and restored what he had lost.

We will doubt.  When we do, be careful not to listen to the voices of those who would cry against it.  Amidst our doubt, we serve and know a God who can hold that doubt, who is big enough to handle when His children struggle with their faith and questions along life's journey.  There is room for doubt in this life, it's just a question of what we do with it.

We will also encounter others who doubt, and despite the journey that we have been through that has brought us to our current place, others have not necessarily had similar circumstances and experiences.  What may seem logical to one may seem impossible to another.  As we encounter those who wrestle with doubt, we aren't called to beat them over the head with our experiences or what we have come to believe and know as truth, we are called to love and to be merciful to them.  If we have doubts, wouldn't we hope to have others be merciful to us?

There is room for dialogue and conversation in doubt, if we would only stop and find the time to engage in these things.  As we talk and converse, wrestling with our doubt, the ministry of presence from others as well as the mercy that they are called to can help us through these doubts.  Remember Job and his friends, while they ministered to him with their presence, some of their advice was less than sound.  A conversation requires both sides to be engaged in order to be fully successful.

The doubts that I have experienced are not behind me, one day they will rear their heads again, but how I handle them is my choice.  If I handle them honestly, they can be used for strengthening, rather than weakening my faith.  May we allow our times of doubt the opportunity to strengthen our faith.  God is big enough to handle our doubt, don't let anyone tell you differently.