Glad to be me?
Do you fit in?
What are the most powerful influences on how you feel about yourself, your life, your ‘fit’ in the world?
What is your identity?
Last year George Floyd was arrested and ultimately killed in police custody in Minneapolis in Minnesota. George Floyd was a man who had known struggle in his life and was in the words of his family, seeking to turn his life around. On that day he got into an altercation with the police following an incident in a shop and ended up arrested and ultimately dead. Witnessing the brutal treatment he endured was deeply disturbing, his death was tragic and wrong. It prompted a wave of revulsion and protest, but also self questioning in many communities; some found themselves asking the question: “does my privilege somehow make me complicit too?”
The outrage around the world at George Floyd's death centred on the disturbing reality that he died that day very likely because racism is alive and well in our world. Our sense of identity and the messages we hear both externally and carry deep within us, are powerful in forming our sense of value, worth and power, and they influence how we treat one another. George Floyd was ultimately a victim of a kind of centuries old identity theft perpetrated on his community, that played out its ugly effects in full view of the world last year.
The bible is clear that the area of identity for the human race is a battle ground, with huge consequences. Human beings are vulnerable creatures, we are connected to each other for good and for ill, and we are often at the mercy of external voices and events that shape our sense of identity.
Identity is a battle ground
Yet even in the midst of all these things, we triumph over them all, for God has made us to be more than conquerors, and his demonstrated love is our glorious victory over everything!
Romans 8:37 TPT
So how can we have a secure identity?
It’s a question that all people of faith will seek to engage with at some point and followers of Jesus will be looking to the bible for answers. One simple definition of identity for a Christian is:
Understanding in a deep sure way that we are God’s children,
and to live out of that reality whatever our circumstances.
In about 55AD, The Apostle Paul said it like this:
For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father”. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.
Strong ideas: slavery and adoption, as if they were somehow pitted against one another in the battle for identity. Perhaps they are?
I don’t know if you have known anyone who has adopted a child? It’s very disruptive! Adoption requires a kind of brave open-hearted mercy that says I am willing to be disrupted, to share my life, my resources, my love with this child, they are to be co-equal with my other children, to inherit my money and possessions. I am willing to suffer with them, identify with them, and accept them wholeheartedly. They won’t have to earn a place in this family, they will be given a place. Paul is saying if we have responded to God’s invitation we have been welcomed like a longed for adopted child to share the family inheritance, alongside Jesus.
It’s an amazing truth, which brings so much hope.
But, Paul says, there are powerful forces in operation pulling you in two different directions, one pulling you in the direction of fear, and one pulling you in the direction of security in God’s family. Fear of rejection, not performing, not coming up to scratch, fear of not fitting in. Fear brings out the worst in us, we fall victim to its power, we are ruled by the need to perform or look good. In its worst form this fear takes over and makes us control and dominate others in an attempt to make ourselves look superior. Fear makes one race kill another in sickening power plays. Fear distorts our true identity, our child of God identity and it enslaves us, demanding we pay its dues over and over.
fear enslaves us
This is the battle for a secure identity. Perhaps you are aware yourself of the battles over these things in your own life?
Paul says, because of this we cry out ‘Abba’ the Aramaic word for daddy, father. Paul uses a word for cry: krad-zo which was supposed to sound like a raven’s croak! It has loads of emotion in it, like a word forced out under intense pressure. I think I know the reason why he chooses that word: underneath it all, we humans long to belong. We long to find acceptance, we long to find a place in the world, with people where we can truly be accepted, not on our performance, not on our merits, not on our looks or how funny or clever we are, but accepted just because we are.
Paul says - when you find that kind of acceptance in God’s family a cry escapes from your lips: “Dad!”
It’s a kind of home-coming and we are desperate for it. It’s a cry of gratitude, a cry for belonging. Witnesses say that George Floyd called out for his mother as he was dying, because when we are under pressure, suffering, or lonely and unable to find all the usual props to make us feel good about ourselves, we need the reassurance of unconditional love. When we become part of God’s family, He says to us, ‘you are welcome, you are home - you are part of my family’.
God wants you to know - He chose you. When you were dead with no options, he chose you. You are costly, and of great value to Him. Later in the passage Paul says the whole of creation is ‘groaning’ waiting for the children of God to get it! When God’s children know who they a really are, its so good for the whole earth.
Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
John 1:12
If you would like to know more about faith in God you could try Alpha, where you can explore what it means to be part of God’s family.
Contributor: Clare Thompson, Associate Pastor, Woodlands Church.