Identity: Not Who Am I, But Whose I Am?

The question of identity is top of mind these days. We have so many who identify themselves in a variety of different ways. That identity is very personal for each individual. Today, I’m not making a political stump speech, nor am I making any effort to denigrate individuals in this post. However, what I am attempting to do is to frame that question of identity in a different way.

I’m reminded of the futile effort to say that this is just the way it is, which becomes the dominant frame of how we define ourselves. The old cartoon Popeye comes to mind in which it depicted him gaining strength to overpower Bluto so that he can rescue and impress Olive Oyl. He would eat spinach to be strong. His famous saying, "I yam what I yam and that’s all that I yam" was not the total substance of his identity. When he ate spinach, he became much more!

Throughout my travels, it is fascinating to me how many different ways we choose to talk about ourselves. I know that it may be a stereotype, but often men identify themselves according to their jobs. They start by saying what they do rather than who they are. Our identity is not defined by the roles that we serve in, but it is perhaps the most complicated question of all. Mother, father, work skill, profession, gender, orientation, political party, the origin of the family, or even where we live often define our identity.

Consider Facebook with all of their many ways to set up your profile and a variety of associations and definitions of who you claim you are. In 2014, ABC News reported that Facebook permitted over 50 different definitions of sexual orientation. There are even more identifiers today. If that’s not complicated enough, there are millions of users with hundreds of other ways to identify yourself in our profile alone.

Recently, I was discussing this very topic with someone. The person stated to me that he are trying to discover who he is.  It was a great conversation, but in the end, it was very self-centered. We live in a world where individuality marks our identity. We hear less and less about how communities or families or any other cluster of people form their identity in which we occupy. People today identify themselves through many individual statements.

It might be that our ancestry can define our origin. Many people are paying top dollars to discover their lineage in an attempt to find out where they came from. Hundreds of thousands of people are taking DNA tests like "23 and Me" to discover their heritage. In part, the question of where we come from is a deep-seated and emotional experience that make up who we are.

Let me change up the paradigm where we typically look to as we discover our identity. What if, instead of asking the question, "who am I?" we began our quest with "whose I am?"

I confess that often I think about my identity. I spent far too much time caring for myself by looking in the mirror and putting on the right clothes or aligning myself with a particular group. We can often define ourselves in subculture arenas because we feel comfortable, by what other people think and act. You know the old adage, birds of a feather flock together. Well, that could be any number of influences that we use to define our individuality.

Let me suggest that we broaden our horizons by thinking less of ourselves. I don’t mean to think less of ourselves but simply think of ourselves less. In our quest to discover ourselves through selfish means, we can often define an identity that has less to do with others and every to do with ourselves alone. We can isolate ourselves in trying to define ourselves. The quest of identity has less to do with me after all.

You see, I believe that people by nature are very selfish. The word "we" is not a part of our vocabulary, but "I" is central! To answer the question of identity based  on selfish motives and selfish means is a circular argument that is artificial at best. Because of our self-centered motivation, we often disregard many other expressions that should feed into our identity.

Let me quickly explain this idea. I recognize that I am the son of my father and mother. I know that not everyone has that identity. Some may not know or have been adopted. These identities are complex. I also know that my identity is based on my city of origin through the relationship and influences of my extended family. It might be that my identity has something to do with my Church or spirituality. We might even say that our identity is based on gender. Different versions and forms of discrimination quickly come to mind in some of these identities. Even as I write this article, the Supreme Court is taking up the definition of sex as a relates to employment and discrimination.

You might say that my quest to discover who I am is rather narrow when I consider my Christian influence or family of origin or even where and how I was raised. You may wonder if I’m somehow missing out because it seems that I have narrowly chosen from a menu of multiple choices.

In our quest to discover who I am, I think that opens up an entirely new set of options. For me, I defined that externally. Let me try to explain this. By gaining an understanding of my spiritual being and not my physical alone I go beyond the constraints of my physical properties and I look externally to the origin of life itself. In faith, of which I define that from a Christian ethos, it helps me to recognize that there is something greater that I need to be aware of. I can understand that a grand designer was involved in the origin of life, even my life. My spirituality is defined by the creator and I look for wisdom through the Bible.

Ultimately though it’s not a question of who I am by selecting from a multiple-choice table of many options but who’s I am as it relates to my identity in my creator.

There is a sense of comfort and relief as my identity is not as important as it is who I identify with. To understand that I am special and I have been created for a purpose and that I have a mission that is beyond these natural boundaries is of comfort to me. As I think of myself less and define my understanding from beyond my physical limitations, I gain a greater understanding in the question of who’s I am is profound and incredibly intriguing to me.

My identity comes from God, the creator. Furthermore it is revealed to me through scripture that through Jesus Christ I can be reconciled to God. It is a gift called salvation and I can find peace in the promises of God‘s word. It is not a list of rules and regulations that somehow define me but it is freeing to know that God is my Father.

The quest of identity has less to do with me after all. Since I am a child of the living God I discover my purpose is in the care and love for others. It is in understanding why I even exist at all at this time and not somehow during all the many millennial of times past.

A very common biblical patriarch that many religions trace their heritage to is in Moses. In the time when Moses was to deliver his people from slavery, a place for they drew their identity from in Egypt, the people lost a sense of who they are and settled with hundreds of years of slavery. When Moses was to tell the people but they would be delivered God told them to tell them that the great "I AM" has sent them!  It was in essence telling them that their identity was no longer going to be a slave to the bounds of this world‘s identity. They are not to be bound by the flesh and other earthly possessions. The God of all creation has called them out and that they are to be freely identified as belonging to The God of all other gods. They are to be a people set a part as His very own!

Rather than spend an entire lifetime searching for the self-centered and earthly definitions, what if we spent our time asking the question of who I belong to rather than a deceptive identity of earthly origin? I can guarantee you that rather than defending your earthly identity you it’s been far more time in the quest that is far more optimal and it seeks to answer the biggest questions of our potential which is beyond this simple human and selfish question.

Finding peace that passes all understanding has come to me from outside of myself. I have a peace that only God can give because I have discovered whose I am!