Identity Crisis?

Have you ever stopped and thought for a moment about how you define yourself? Each one of us, in one way or another, has sort of a default setting that we naturally revert back to in various situations. A good way to gauge this is by asking yourself, “how do I present myself when meeting someone new?”

Now, like I said, I think that we all have sort of a default that we naturally exude. For some people it’s wealth or privilege; for others it’s attractiveness. Others define themselves by their social status, their humor, past glories of high school sports, academic achievements, or family name. There is really a plethora of ways that we can try and define who we are.

For myself, I think that my basic tendency is to define myself with knowledge. I generally am content with trying to prove that I’m the smartest person in the room at any given time. It really doesn’t matter what the topic is; I feel like I can speak to just about anything. And it’s usually not enough to simply speak to anything; I have to present myself as an expert even if I know little to nothing about the actual topic.

I sound like an arrogant, self-satisfying jerk, don’t I? That doesn’t sound very nice, does it? Well it isn’t. And therein lies the problem. When we try to define ourselves we naturally turn to pride as a form of self-identity. Every thing that I listed above as ways that people define themselves stems from pride. Now part of this isn’t entirely our fault. Most of us have grown up in an environment that actually encourages being prideful and arrogant. How many times growing up in school were we taught about having “good self-esteem” or “taking pride in your work?” The natural outgrowth of teaching children to worry about their self-esteem at such a young age is a population of twenty-somethings that are absolutely obsessed with themselves.

Don’t think for a second that things like Facebook and MySpace aren’t directly related to how we identify ourselves. We are generally so captivated and interested in ourselves that we think that everyone around should feel the same way, hence websites devoted to allowing each and everyone of us to “express” ourselves because we’re that important.

At this point, if you’ve gotten this far, you might be asking yourself what my point is, other that trying to make you feel bad about having a MySpace account. Here’s my point: Mark 10:17-27. This exchange is generally referred to as Jesus and the Rich, Young Ruler. When Jesus tells the young ruler to sell all his possessions and give them to the poor, He isn’t speaking in terms of a salvific requirement; Jesus is taking a shot at the young man’s very identity. This rich, young ruler was being identified 2000 years ago the exact same way the we’re identifying him today, as a rich, young ruler. Jesus wanted to get beyond that.

Why, you might ask? After all, by our standards this man would have been a great convert. He was obviously wealthy, so he could have supported Jesus and the disciples financially. He was in some type of leadership role so maybe he could have made life a little easier for Jesus with either the Jewish or Roman rulers depending on his background. So why did Jesus put this stumbling block in his path? Because Jesus didn’t want to feed the man’s ego by making him feel important. You see, Jesus doesn’t look at us and see varying levels of important, good, or attractive people. Jesus looks at us, all of us, and sees INCOMPETENT. This is significant because someone who considers themselves to be of importance can come to Jesus and say, “Boy, you really sure could use me. Look at all the great things I could do for You and Your ministry.” Someone, however, who sees themselves correctly, as Jesus see them, can only come as a sinner, in need of grace, asking for mercy, and giving glory to the Lord for His work in their life.

So here’s the final question. Not, how do you define yourself. We’ve already looked at that. Instead, how should we define ourselves in light of what Jesus has done for us? The answer to this question changes every other question we will every have about ourselves.

Posted by David on December 6, 2008 01:19 PM | Permalink | Back To Main