When you're searching for identity
During my late teen and early twenties, I was obsessed with discovering my purpose. I do not think that’s unusual for that age, of course; but I have distinct memories of this search. From church, I had picked up that my purpose must be different than the purpose of a man, which seemed to rule out many interesting options right away. So I kept looking and I found many answers. My purpose was to help my husband (which I didn’t have for part of that time) fulfill his purpose. My purpose was to help my husband fulfill God’s purpose. My purpose was to raise godly children. My purpose was to have a clean house. My purpose…the options list was longer than one might expect. Yet somehow the answers were all unsettling.
What about women who didn’t have a husband? What was my purpose the whole time I was growing up? What if my house wasn’t clean, I didn’t have children, they didn’t grow up to love Jesus? What if I didn’t want to solely cheerlead my husband but also wanted a work of my own?
I had to begin with looking at an option and saying, "that cannot be what it means to be a woman." But that didn't give me a place to live, a place to put down roots. I had to keep searching until my answer was “A woman is a human made in God’s image, placed here to continue God’s work and represent Him.” Learning about the image of God transformed how I viewed myself and my place in this world.
I could lean into that as a teenager. I could fulfill that work if I was married or single, if I was a mom or not. I could take that description into any job, whether paid or unpaid. It made sense because it could apply to any woman, anywhere around the world, regardless of class or race or marital status. That shift reshaped my whole identity.
All of us want an identity. We are a culture obsessed with “finding ourselves” and I don’t say that mockingly; I understand it. Matter of fact, I think it’s good. We need something solid to live out of. We were made to find our home and our identity in God, but if we don’t know that, we’ll have to try to make do with something else whether it’s a clean house, a spouse, or what other people think of us.
The New Testament phrases it a different way because after sin enters the picture, people are unable to image God appropriately. Jesus came, and, with His life, He showed us what it looks like to image God (and be God, of course, but that’s not what we’re focusing on here). The New Testament reminds us that as followers of Jesus, we are being remade to look like Him. It’s new and yet it’s also back to that same purpose of humanity in the beginning. God’s ways are not thwarted. He’s making all things new, not all new things.
Maybe you aren’t where you hoped to be by now. Maybe you wanted to be married and you’re not. Or maybe you wanted children and you don’t have them. Maybe you have everything you wanted and it tastes flat. Bearing God’s image is broad enough for all of us. It will hold the peculiarities of our stories. God’s work is purposeful all the way through our lives even if it’s not what we asked for or wanted.
In a search for identity, whether it’s you or someone around you that’s looking, I have found meditating on these verses to be helpful. Perhaps you will too.
Romans 8:29
2 Corinthians 3:18
1 John 3:2
Always,
Lisa
Links I Love:
The Bible Project has a great podcast series on the image of God, but you’re going to need to scroll way back in their feed to find it. Or maybe just search their site.
This book is thought-provoking and insightful.
I read Seth Godin’s email every single morning.
I wrote a new blog post this week.