Discovering your God-given identity is important for setting good, God-centered goals. Discovering your God-given identity starts with unlearning the past. It’s like a dance. You tentatively begin to attempt the steps. It takes some time to find the beat and the rhythm. There may be some missteps at first. But once you find it, your movement becomes fluid and graceful. It’s fun for you and beautiful for others to see. Discovering your true identity is worth the effort of unlearning past patterns and finding your natural rhythm.
You learned a lot through your past experiences. Things that were said to you by important adults in your childhood adhered to your identity like stray scraps of tape. They may not be immediately visible, but they are still stuck where they don’t belong. Discovering your true identity involves discovering the lies and unsticking them. What someone once said has become how you think about yourself.
It takes some prayerful searching to discover where they are stuck. Removing them may be more difficult than it seems, but it is worth your effort. And remember, you aren’t alone in this process. God Himself walks through it with you by His Holy Spirit. He will reveal the lies and help you to replace them with His truth.
You might also want to bring a trusted friend into this process. Let them know the lies that you are unlearning and the truths that you want to absorb into who you are. Just knowing that there is someone else you can talk to makes a world of difference.
Chosen Child, Not the Consolation Prize
You and I have been chosen by God. That is the fact of the matter. How you feel about it is not really that important. Our current culture relies more on feelings than on fact. Feelings overshadow so many decisions. They shape perspectives. They inform how new stories are presented and how ads are crafted. Feelings are changeable. Facts are not.
John Adams, one of our founding fathers, is quoted as saying, “Facts are stubborn things.” Facts do not change with feelings. Facts are what they are and that is all. They can’t be prodded and poked and made to adjust. Facts are reality. Feelings are shadow.
Fact: You are a chosen child of God. He chose you, even if your parents did not. You would not exist if God had not chosen you. You were not an afterthought. You were not the consolation prize. You are the treasured, chosen child of God. That’s a fact you can build your life on.
I am the first child in my family. My dad was the first in his family to be born in the United States. Although they came to the US as young children, both his parents had been born in Italy. Something I learned just from being around my Italian relatives was that a firstborn boy to carry on the family name was preferred. I was the firstborn and most definitely not a boy.
Please understand, no one ever said anything to me like, “I wish you had been a boy.” There were no nasty comments. I was loved to the best of my family’s ability to do so. But from simply living in my family, I absorbed the cultural truth that the firstborn child being a female was not the first choice. I was the second choice. That unconsciously became my identity.
Fast forward several decades. I was leading a Bible study as a pastor on staff at a church when I realized this truth about myself, that I saw myself as the second choice.
As part of the study, participants were encouraged to look back at their lives and see what messages about themselves they had come to believe and to consider how God might want to take all the broken parts of their past and give them a message to share.
I realized I had seen myself as the consolation prize rather than God’s treasured child. Accepted and loved but not the desired outcome. Once my eyes were opened, my perspective began to change. It has transformed me and how I step into any situation. The verse that God highlighted that speaks to my identity is Colossians 3:12.
It says, “ Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved . . .” Of course, it goes on to describe how God’s chosen people should live, but let’s just stop here. That right there is an identity statement worth adopting. You are chosen, holy, and dearly loved. Chosen: God picked you. Holy: You are set apart for God’s purposes. Dearly loved: Not just loved but loved completely and passionately.
As I began to make this my identity, I found myself walking with more confidence and authority. Not second choice. Not the consolation prize. Exactly who God wanted to walk as His representative in the world.
You, dear friend, are not the consolation prize. You are exactly what God wanted. It doesn’t matter what your family wanted. They got what God gave them. They got what God wanted. What God wants is what matters. He wants you. You are his first choice. You are His prize.
Let that become your identity. Step into every situation with the confidence of knowing that you are exactly the person God wanted to be in that place at that time and He has given you all that you need to succeed. He is with you. Make that a part of your goal-setting process.
Excerpt from The YES Adventure: Transform Your Life with One Word by Cathleen Zahradnik. Check it out here. If you’ve read the book, please leave a review on Amazon to help other people find it!