How We Lost Our Identity

Somehow, even though we didn’t intend for it to happen, we let ourselves forget our identity. Humanity, as a whole, has lost sight of who and what, it was created to be.

In the very beginning, God created mankind in His very own image. And, because God made us in His very own image, He made us perfect.

Once upon a time, we knew that. We knew, as human beings, who we were. But we let ourselves forget. It sounds crazy, that we would do that, that we even could do that,

but we did.

I understand that you’re probably wondering how on earth it could be possible for us to “forget our identity”, especially in a day and age where the whole world is about “self”.

Self care.

Self help.

Self preservation.

We live in a world where “self” is our number one priority, so I get how ridiculous it sounds to say that we have forgotten our identity.

But we did; and here’s how.

We took our eyes off of God. We decided that who and what He created us to be,

- a reflection of Him -

was not enough, so we turned our backs on the One in Whose image we were created, and set out to find our identity apart from Him. We bought into the worlds idea that we don’t need God to live a whole life. Or, perhaps more precisely, we bought into the worlds idea that God is holding us back from living a whole life. We literally decided that we would be better off without God.

How could we have let that happen?

Even though we were created in God’s very own, perfect image; to love, and be loved perfectly, by a perfect God; somehow, we got sucked into the idea that, being in relationship with Him was inhibiting us from discovering; from being, who we really are. So, we decided not to view ourselves as a reflection of God. We decided instead, to see ourselves, to discover our identity, apart from Him.

Which is ridiculous.

Which is ludicrous.

It is the ultimate definition of insanity.

We didn’t like God telling us who we were, (a reflection of Him) so we decided to find our identity in ourselves, and without God. We put God out of hearts, out of our minds, and out of our sight. Even though He created us in His image, and to be in relationship with Him, we determined that we could do a better job of identifying our humanity disconnected from Him.

And oh, how we have established who we are.

---

After we determined that our identity should be found only within ourselves, and after we separated ourselves from God, we were left with just our flesh, and we were free to discover who we thought we really were.

But when we looked at our own reflections, we didn’t like what we saw.

What we saw was incomplete.

What we saw was flawed.

We were unable to find satisfaction in our own identity so, we began looking past our own reflections, and began to focus on the people around us. We started comparing ourselves to each other and we decided that our distinctiveness was somehow less impressive than the uniqueness of the people we admired.

We started to covet and mimic and replicate the qualities we desired in others. And when that didn’t bring satisfaction, we decided that we should be better versions of the people we emulated. And so we had to up our game.

We needed to be better.

Be slimmer.

Be stronger.

Be more beautiful.

Make more money.

Buy better houses and cars and go on better vacations.

Be busier.

But no matter how hard we've tried,

we simply could not keep up with those we aspired to imitate.

As a result, we have plummeted into anxiety.

Into debt.

Into depression.

Our pursuit for identity independent from God,

has driven us to become a society where we all look and act the same;

Broken.

---

We don't want to have our identity defined by our Creator. We think we can do a better job defining ourselves. So we've severed our relationship with Him and we've set out to walk the path of our own choosing in an attempt to discover who we really are.

But all we've discovered is an empty void. A life devoid of joy. A life devoid of hope. A life devoid of purpose. We are desperately searching to fill that gaping hole within our spirits but the truth is, that hollow void is simply the absence of God. And it cannot be filled with anything but God. You can search your whole life long, and read every self help book that was ever written. You can practice all the self care rituals and focus your entire life on discovering your best self but you will never, ever find your true identity, your ultimate worth, in anything but exactly who and what you were created to be;

a reflection of your God.