Blog 15: Identity
Hello everyone! Happy Word Wednesday! My name is Aiden Cooper and I am friends with Sarai - we go to church together. She asked me to be a guest on her blog and of course, I accepted. It took a lot of thought and prayer, but I eventually landed on a topic - Identity. Have you ever felt embarrassed or confused about who you are? Or have you ever felt the need to blend in with who people around you to feel accepted? I think maybe all of us have felt that way before - I know I have.
Identity is such a heavy topic that is a lot of times overlooked. I chose this topic because having an identity is foundational for our relationship with Christ. How do you think that people view you? Be honest with yourself and think about it for a couple of moments. A character in the Bible that is very important when coming to identity is Samson. Samson was so focused on what the world thought of him that he lost sight of what God thought of him.
Now you may be familiar with the story of Samson. If not, let me give you a recap from Judges 13-16. Samson was born a Nazarite. This means that he was one of God’s chosen ones. Now this might sound cool, but this also came with a lot of responsibility and meant that he could never cut his hair. I would be a wreck if I went a month without getting a haircut, much less my whole life. This also means that he could never touch dead bodies. In Judges 14: 5-9 it says that a lion attacked him and he tore it apart with his bare hands as he would have a young goat (poor goat) and then scooped some honey out of the dead carcass and gave some to his parents. He has already broken his vow as a Nazarite.
Fast forward a couple of years and he meets a woman named Delilah. Long story short Delilah is an evil Philistine and she finds out that if she cuts Samson’s hair, then he will be weak. They tie him up, and at the palace he pushes on a pillar and kills everyone in the palace, including himself. Sad ending huh? Samson was so focused on what the world thought of him and how he was viewed that he forgot that God gave him his strength. Samson was very foolish when he married Delilah. He was just looking at her outward appearance and didn’t look at her character, or if she had a heart for God.
We are God’s number one creation, made in HIS image, which means he is the foundation of our identity. Once we have our identity grounded in Him, we don’t have to worry about everything else. All of the other parts of who we are build on this foundation. Then we can go out into the world and share the gospel with other people, proclaiming the good news. We know not only who we are, but whose we are.
Samson showed us what it’s like to lose our identity. How can having an identity in Christ help us? For me, identity has been very important over the past two years. With Covid it felt like everything was moving and changing. At times, it felt like there was no one to hang on to. I prayed to God a lot during these past 2 years and through adversity, I felt like I built my identity as a child of God. Jeremiah 29:11 says “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Another example of this is I don’t have a phone. Some kids at school tease me for it, but I know that I am a child of God and I stand up for myself. The Bible says to store up treasures in Heaven, not on Earth.
So, what are some things you can do starting today? Here are 3 things to help you focus on building your identity on what matters most:
1. Always make sure that you don’t focus on what the world (sometimes this includes your friends) thinks of you.
2. Remember that God’s opinion is the only one that matters. Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
3. Find 5 minutes every day to talk to God and ask that He help remind you who you are in Him.
I hope that this blog post was helpful, and hopefully you read something that encourages you. I sure did learn a thing or two making this blog, because identity is something that I still deal with daily. I have to remind myself to not focus on what people say I am, but who God says I am. I hope that you do the same! And I hope I will be able to be a guest speaker again in the future. Bye!!!