This is so simple. So sensible. But I forget it more often than I should. Hopefully the reminder will encourage you too.
***
From Pursuing Christ, Creating Art, by Gary Molander
(paraphrased in places, emphasis added.)
Identity is the person you are, regardless of your actions. Take your actions away-- both good and bad-- and whatever is left is your identity. And there's only one identity that has any value--
A child of God.
Every other identity you could grab onto pales in comparison to being, in the deepest part of your heart, a child of God. And so it makes perfect sense that your core identity will also house your strongest temptation-- your greatest lure. When our Enemy attacks, his striking point will always be to our core.
To our identity.
Unfortunately for people in any church ministry, his exact point of strike is the temptation to confuse our ministry with our identity. He wants to make them the same. But they are not the same.
At your lowest, you may find yourself asking "But if I'm no longer a ____, what am I?!"
Here's what I know about you.
You are not your art.
You are not the place where you attend worship gatherings.
Your are not your technical ability.
You are not your voice.
You are not what your authority figures believe about you.
You are not your blog posts, or your readers' insane responses.
You are not your number of Twitter followers or your Facebook friend count.
You are not your impact.
You are not your successes, and you are not your failures.
You are not that thing in your life that didn't work out.
You are not that thing in your life that worked out perfectly.
I also know this about you-- I know that in Christ, you are a child of God. This is your core identity. And I know that your core identity is something that can never be stripped away.
Because there will come a day when you no longer create art.
There will come a day when the software you use is no longer in existence.
There will come a day when you no longer serve in that church building, in that ministry.
There will come a day when he's/she's no longer your boss and they're no longer your board.
There will come a day when you quit blogging, tweeting and updating.
There will even come a day when your impact wanes.
But there will never, ever come a day when you stop being a child of God.
Ever."
