The very thing you despise is what you end up becoming.
And the very thing you become is what you absolutely despise.
If we are honest with ourselves, this is true on many counts.
“I don’t want to end up like my dad who prioritized work over family.”
“I don’t want to be like my mom who micromanages and controls every aspect of my life.”
“I don’t want to live a life that’s full of pretense, deceit and facade pretending to be someone I’m not.”
“I will never be one who will always be dependent on being in a relationship to feel complete.”
“I cannot allow myself to be sucked into a situation where I cannot do anything about it.”
These statements run through our minds, promising ourselves we will never go the direction our parents, friends, relatives, loved ones, even enemies have gone. But for some reason, we find ourselves in that “cave.”
One of my favorite movies is “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.” Eustace was an English school boy who was taken into a magical country called Narnia. If you are familiar with the Chronicles of Narnia, this would be one of the books C.S. Lewis authored that became a movie.
Eustace’s identity was an arrogant, self-absorbed goofball. Towards the middle of the movie, while with King Caspian and his other shipmates stop over in an island to re-stock supplies, Eustace wanders into a cave of a dragon. He who hated and despised dragons, became one. The one who had “dragonish thoughts in his heart” transforms into a dragon.
“We become the identities we hate and hate the identities we become. “- David Lomas
“How did I let bitterness take over my life?”
“How did I allow one bad relationship to ruin the way I view men?”
“How did I let that loss keep me from trusting anyone again?”
“Why did I allow one failure to define every decision I make in the future?”
So what do we do? We try to reinvent ourselves.
“Reinventing ourselves doesn’t work. It may work for a season. Losing a hundred pounds will change things. Dating the “perfect person” might go a long way to medicate that loneliness. But we become neurotic. We have to keep off the weight; we have to keep the person we love.” (David Lomas)
The problem with this is that we just traded identities. We had our old one but now we replaced it with another. It became just a mere substitute.
Identity is never found on self-discovery. It only downward spirals into frustration.
Identity is never found in another relationship. It only ends in heart aches when you get into a wrong one.
Identity is never found in possessions. We only realize that they are absolutely temporary.
It can only be found in the One who designed you and me.
He who is the Designer gets to design.
He who is the Creator gets to define the purpose.
“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God.” 1 John 3:1.
We are His children by faith in Christ. That’s who we are and that’s our identity.
We are loved, accepted and favored. And in that, we can feel secure.
And the great thing is that the love, acceptance and favor all come way before we even did anything for Him. In fact, all that came when we were in darkness and sinking in the quicksand of sin.
Only those whose identity is found in Him will discover their truest identity.