Identity: The New Has Come

A lot has gone down since I last posted. Granted, I posted a month and a half ago, so it's not like things haven't had a long time to brew! (My apologies for the inconsistency.)

I have been thinking a lot over the past couple weeks about this school year as it draws to a close...mostly because, when you teach kids, the end of the year kind of slams you in the face whether you wanted it to or not.

I've been testing my kids out of the program, and my data is, by normal human standards, great. But I don't operate by normal human standards. I'm a closet perfectionist. I kind of feel like I got a B when I should've gotten an A. I feel like if I had worked a little harder, invested a little more in my relationships with my tutors and students, these kids would have learned a lot more.

Forget that many of them who didn't make progress at midyear blew it out of the water on their final assessment; forget the constant love, appreciation, and affirmation I receive from my students and tutors (who are also my students, since I teach them to teach). I have built so many relationships that were difficult to build. But I have been agreeing with the lie that saturates the mentality of the world: that I am not good enough. That I have disappointed the people I care about.

Last week, I was taking a break at work because I was exhausted. When you work with kids, the only way to escape from human company is to lock yourself in the bathroom. I am not ashamed to admit that I locked the door and stood there staring at myself in the mirror for a long time. I was trying to overcome the near-crying experiences of the week and thinking over my regrets from the entire year. I was feeling like I'd failed at every relationship, not just at work, but outside of work, too. The enemy loves to take the one thing I really care about--loving people--and tell me I'm a failure at it.

God can speak to you anytime, even when you have locked yourself in the bathroom and are examining your hair in the mirror. While I was standing there, I heard a whisper: Your identity is hidden in Me.

I was like, "Yeah!...wait...that's not the verse..."

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:3)

The verse (from one of my favorite books of the New Testament) says it's our life that is hidden in Christ. In that moment, I realized with a new shade of light that my identity is my new life in Jesus.

From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:16-17)

Why have I been regarding myself according to the flesh? The new has come.

My identity doesn't rest in my relationships with others. It doesn't rest in what they think of me, or whether or not I have disappointed them. I can't mess up, because I have died, and in my place, a new woman has been born again--a woman who looks a lot like Jesus, because her identity is hidden with Him.

This week, I read Philippians. In chapter 3, Paul is warning his readers to be aware of people who "place confidence in" (that is, rest their whole faith identity on) rituals of the flesh, like circumcision, thinking that such things are what saves them. You might be familiar with the verses that follow:

If anyone else thinks he has confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumsized on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness, under the law blameless.

He is listing the things he placed faith in as the source of his identity before he knew Christ.

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith--that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

He didn't have to rely on his own righteousness, his own achievements--his "perfect" score. That man was dead, and he was attaining the resurrection from the dead: new life in Christ.

Then comes one of my favorite verses:

But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.

I don't think it was very mature for me to lock myself in the bathroom and think back on my past regrets. It's not very mature for me to feel bad about myself, a woman whom God has named perfect and whole in His son.

I didn't really fail. But who cares if I did? My identity is not in my work. It's in something that will never pass away.

It can be hard sometimes to remember to forget what lies behind and keep going toward our call. Jesus called us all to love people, and He has placed an even more specific call on my life to love people in exactly the ways I have been doing it this year, at home, at church, and at work. This is what I have to chase after, forgetting my regrets, because they don't matter.

When someone calls you, they use your name. They are telling you who you are and what you're going to do. Don't let the devil name you. He's a pathological liar (John 8:44). If you are a believer in Christ, you are born again, and that new identity is forever preserved and protected by the one who called you out of death into life--the one who spoke you into being by the word of His power. Let Him call you by name.