God Restores My Identity

Several years ago, I sang in a gospel choir. We were given a new song to learn called ‘Identity’ and it was in learning this song and singing the lyrics that I began to dive into what identity in God really means. I struggled with the lyrics of ‘You are my Father/ In you I find my identity.’ What did that really mean?

Action vs. Being

I think I struggled with the song implying that God says who I am rather it being my choice. I struggled with laying down my ideas and picking up His instead. I agreed that he was in charge of my future and my life. Those were actions, but how did that intersect with the ‘me’ and who being me is?

Identity is a complex thought in and of itself. How we see ourselves is a conglomeration of our experiences and choices, of who He made us to be, and also what we have heard of ourselves and what we say to ourselves.

Sin distorts the real ‘me’

I guess growing up, we take in what family says of us, how others treat us and what we are told all around us. Even in a Christian setting, these things get distorted and bent out of shape. The begin to shape the ‘me’ but they are not the real ‘me’. I think that is what I began to understand during this time of trying to understand my identity together with God. There are walls that we construct and lies that we swallow that He never intended for us. By now establishing my and your identity in God, He can tear down those walls and break through the lies. After all, we can be, ‘confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus,’ (Philippians 1:6). So, I needed to step aside and let God define the ‘who’ that I am. Frankly, it is still something I have to do; isn’t this the dying to self?

God restores ‘me’

David had it right when he said, ‘He restores my soul’ (Psalm 23:3). He restores our soul by returning it (ever so slowly) to the way it was before sin found us. We have the freedom to release all the walls and the lies and distortions because God can take us back to the beginning of ourselves. He knit us together in our mother’s womb and can show us what He intended for us at that time.

This restoration takes place through a process of nudges and sometimes through desiring to change and doing something about it. When we have that thought of how we shouldn’t have done that or said that, those moments are the nudges to look inside with the lens of God and see what needs restoration. He wants to see us restored and will if we listen to Him.