Who Are You?

Who are you?

When someone asks us this question, we always offer our names first. After that, we go with relationships – significant others, parents, children, colleagues. Then activities and places – where we work or go to school, where we go to church, things we’re involved in. On the surface, in public, to a stranger who might ask, we want to communicate that, whatever our identity, we belong. Somewhere, to someone.

But in the middle of the night, when we’re lying awake and staring at the ceiling, what do we say when we turn that question on ourselves?

Who am I?

Our answers to ourselves become far less about convincing someone that we belong, and far more transparent in what we believe about ourselves.

I’m an idiot.

I’m a failure.

I’m the world’s worst parent.

I’ll never be good enough.

I’m unloved.

I’m unlovable.

I’m damaged.

I’m weak.

I’m a fraud.

I’m invisible.

Do these sound familiar? They are the party line of the Negative Self Talk Committee that loves to hold late night meetings in our brains and our hearts. The committee doesn’t always need much help. For some of us, the things we tell ourselves simply echo the wounding things that we have been told by others, making it even easier to believe that this – this less than – is who we are.

But there is no freedom in that identity. None. Every painful word creates another bar on the cage that holds us back from being who we were created to be. And we were created to be more, so very much more.

But God didn’t create us to be more and then walk away. His pursuit of us is steadfast and unyielding. Have you encountered this persistent God? Has He won your heart? Then you are changed. Your identity is changed. It is built on the solid rock of our unshakable God, not on the shifting sand of the things we hold to and the lies we tell ourselves.

So who are you?

You are loved.

You are worthy.

You are new.

You are clean.

You have a purpose.

You are a son or daughter of the King.

You are whole.

You are seen.

You are known.

You are forgiven.

You are not an accident.

You are not alone.

You are not your past.

You are not your scars.

You are not your hurts.

You are surrendered, and in that surrender you are more than a conqueror.

You belong. You belong. You belong.

And you don’t have to convince anyone of that.