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Why is fulfillment just out of reach?
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When an arrow struck my heart and told me I wasn’t enough, I believed it. I asked Jesus to enter my heart a few months later, but the little shack He entered was already war-ravaged.
Identity by personality
In order to avoid the pain of rejection, I decided to do everything I could to make people like me. I couldn’t be a tomboy, but I could be likable. I would do whatever people wanted me to do and let my friends have the final say in anything we did together. I wouldn’t speak my mind but stuff my feelings deep inside where they wouldn’t offend anyone.
In order to avoid the pain of rejection, I decided to do everything I could to make people like me. I couldn’t be a tomboy, but I could be likable. I would do whatever people wanted me to do and let my friends have the final say in anything we did together. I wouldn’t speak my mind but stuff my feelings deep inside where they wouldn’t offend anyone.
The worst part is that I
convinced myself that this was the “Christ-like” thing to do.
I was being selfless, right? Actually, I was selfishly being selfless just so people would like me.
It didn’t work.
Frankly, I’m just not charismatic. My personality is not warm and friendly on its own, and it didn’t help that I was scared to really love anyone because such closeness would make rejection hurt all the more.
Besides, one of my best friends had me beat in the likable personality category. After introducing her to a couple of my friends and watching them lean away from me and toward her bright smile like plants in the sun, I gave up trying to win friends with my personality. I left that to people who were really good at it. There was no point in giving the shirt off my back if nobody even noticed the person behind the shirt.
So I decided to do things to make people notice and like me. No one can overlook a smart or talented person.
Identity by performance
I was being selfless, right? Actually, I was selfishly being selfless just so people would like me.
It didn’t work.
Frankly, I’m just not charismatic. My personality is not warm and friendly on its own, and it didn’t help that I was scared to really love anyone because such closeness would make rejection hurt all the more.
Besides, one of my best friends had me beat in the likable personality category. After introducing her to a couple of my friends and watching them lean away from me and toward her bright smile like plants in the sun, I gave up trying to win friends with my personality. I left that to people who were really good at it. There was no point in giving the shirt off my back if nobody even noticed the person behind the shirt.
So I decided to do things to make people notice and like me. No one can overlook a smart or talented person.
Identity by performance
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We carefully craft our own identities |
At age eight, I started violin lessons and practiced diligently every day even when I hated it. My calluses on my fingers grew with the calluses on my heart.
At age ten, I overheard my mom telling someone I wasn’t very athletic, so I decided to change that. By age twelve, I was running regularly and spending hours practicing basketball and volleyball in a gym all by myself. I ran circles on our local ball field, chasing an identity just out of reach. As balls slammed against a hard wall in my practices, the gym echoed hollowly with the sound of my efforts.
At age twelve, I started practicing calligraphy and drawing. While my handwriting grew prettier, my words grew emptier, and while my graphite faces grew more realistic, my own face grew more ambiguous.
At age fourteen, I started memorizing vast chunks of the Bible and dramatizing them for audiences. I paced, somersaulted, and screamed truth in front of crowds for their approval. But I was unconsciously living a lie.
Who was I?
I was a violinist. I was an athlete. I was an artist. I was an actor.
This is who I was.
I carefully crafted each identity and waited for the increasing acceptance I craved.
It didn’t come.
Still not enough
When I was fifteen, I met a boy at church camp who was muscular, dark, and gorgeous. Like my faithful puppy friend Jared of my childhood, he shadowed me for a day or two. When I tore crisp, wet lettuce and sang “By the Waters of Babylon” with other girls, he tore lettuce too. When I shot baskets in the gym for the free-throw competition, he shot baskets too. This new shadow baffled and pleased me, even if he did do flips while girls were watching.
But then my sun friend arrived, and my shadow shifted to her.
I swallowed the pain of this subtle rejection. I loved my friend and already knew my pale smiles couldn’t match hers. So I prepared to show my prowess in other ways. As I burst across the finish line at the mile race, sweat-soaked and lungs afire, I wondered if he would notice me again. I had worked hard, and I was faster than any girl who dared to race me. Surely I would never have to earn anyone’s love again. I had finished proving myself, and yet—nothing changed.
The gorgeous boy smiled at me and looked away again.
People cheered for me and then fell silent.
The hole inside gaped on.
When your identity is based on the earned opinion of others, nothing you do is enough. Smiles fade, cheers die out, and nothing is different.
I cried in the weeks that followed that summer camp when I was fifteen. I
consoled myself with one little truth, “Jesus thinks I’m tops.”
But it was like slapping a Band-Aid on a jagged wound.
Proverbs 29:25 says, “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe.”
This means that we shouldn’t let mankind’s opinion govern our lives. That is what I did for ten years or more. I didn’t know what it meant to throw myself completely on God. I didn’t know the peace of resting absolutely in the identity that Christ had already given me.
When I was fifteen, I met a boy at church camp who was muscular, dark, and gorgeous. Like my faithful puppy friend Jared of my childhood, he shadowed me for a day or two. When I tore crisp, wet lettuce and sang “By the Waters of Babylon” with other girls, he tore lettuce too. When I shot baskets in the gym for the free-throw competition, he shot baskets too. This new shadow baffled and pleased me, even if he did do flips while girls were watching.
But then my sun friend arrived, and my shadow shifted to her.
I swallowed the pain of this subtle rejection. I loved my friend and already knew my pale smiles couldn’t match hers. So I prepared to show my prowess in other ways. As I burst across the finish line at the mile race, sweat-soaked and lungs afire, I wondered if he would notice me again. I had worked hard, and I was faster than any girl who dared to race me. Surely I would never have to earn anyone’s love again. I had finished proving myself, and yet—nothing changed.
The gorgeous boy smiled at me and looked away again.
People cheered for me and then fell silent.
The hole inside gaped on.
When your identity is based on the earned opinion of others, nothing you do is enough. Smiles fade, cheers die out, and nothing is different.
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Our identity and fulfillment remain elusive because we are basing them on things that don't last. |
But it was like slapping a Band-Aid on a jagged wound.
Proverbs 29:25 says, “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe.”
This means that we shouldn’t let mankind’s opinion govern our lives. That is what I did for ten years or more. I didn’t know what it meant to throw myself completely on God. I didn’t know the peace of resting absolutely in the identity that Christ had already given me.
Identity by performance
for God
Exhausted, I closed my heart to most of the world and turned to the one Friend I knew would never reject me. Or, at least He wouldn’t reject me if I did everything right. I decided that nothing would go wrong if I strove to please God, and since I was such a “good girl,” that shouldn’t be hard.
But now I was treating God the same way I had treated the rest of my friends. I was showing off all of my tricks on the playground, hoping that He would pick me.
Our real identity
Exhausted, I closed my heart to most of the world and turned to the one Friend I knew would never reject me. Or, at least He wouldn’t reject me if I did everything right. I decided that nothing would go wrong if I strove to please God, and since I was such a “good girl,” that shouldn’t be hard.
But now I was treating God the same way I had treated the rest of my friends. I was showing off all of my tricks on the playground, hoping that He would pick me.
Our real identity
What I didn’t know is that God had already picked me. The Bible tells us that He picked us before we ever did anything right.
“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
God has already fashioned an identity for each of us. This identity is brilliant, exciting, and new, and we don’t have to do a thing to earn it. But it will always elude us as long as we are slaving to create “our own” identities.
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