Our identity

By CHERYL CRUCE

Life was so much easier before the password was created. Coming from what is now the older generation, I will admit that the special characters, numbers, and capital letters do nothing but complicate my life.
Add a username with said characters, and my mind automatically shuts down. I understand that usernames and passwords have come to the forefront for the sake of progress. However, how many other identities have I allowed to be attached to my being?
Becoming who I am today has taken 63 years of character-building ups and downs in life. I want to be known for who I am created to be.
Know me for my joys and my scars. Know me by my victories and my losses. I have no desire to change the password to identify myself. I am not ready to be identified by a little plastic card in my wallet or who the world says I should be.
An ancient Chinese Proverb reads, “Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.”
I have often found myself buried in a world of stress and confusion, trying to be what I believed I should be or what my surroundings expected of me. Conversely, when I removed the mask of expectation, I uncovered a greater life. I discovered a natural relaxation in becoming who God created me to be.
Does that mean my life is perfect? No! It only means I am permitting the labels of this world to be carved away from my being.
The carving away concept is not a new idea. The Disciple John used the metaphor of the vine and branches. His writings proclaimed God as the gardener and Jesus to be the vine. We are the branches that grow from His grace.
John speaks of a pruning process we all go through, where the old is cut away so that the new can yield the fruit we are formed to produce. The trimming of our character may be painful, but it is necessary to become who we are created to be (John 15).
There is a process of faith that happens when we consent to God’s pruning away the characteristics of the world. Failure is no longer a part of our identity because the Word of God says we are more than conquerers (Romans 8:37).
We are not losing the race because we are athletes reaching for the prize Jesus has won for us (Philippians 3:12-14). We are not bound to addictions of this world; we are set free from the law of sin and death through His grace (Romans 8:2). We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us (Philippians 4:13).
We all need the strengthening of Jesus. God does not want us to be identified with the brokenness of this world.
As long as our username and password remain in His truth, we will continue to be overcomers and find Christ’s strength. No one can steal our identity, for we are identified through Him. We will rise above our circumstances through faith in Jesus one step at a time. When we trust Him to create in us the person we are called to be, we will find relaxation in our true selves. We will rise above the identity of this world.
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, giving us the ministry of reconciliation. God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ.

Cheryl Mixon-Cruce is Pastor of Ochlockonee Bay United Methodist Church and Sopchoppy United Methodist Church.