What does it mean to "find your identity" in something? How does it impact us emotionally if that thing falls away? What does "Identity" even mean? These are the questions we will tackle in this week's podcast.
Show Notes:
What does it mean to find your identity in something?
“Identity” is a word being throw around a lot lately, in both secular and Christian circles. But what does it mean, and how does it affect the way we think if we “find our identity” in something?
Let’s start with a basic definition. Identity is how we distinguish one thing from another. As they say in Neature Walk, you can tell that something is what it is by the way that it is. You can identify a tree as a tree and not a car because of the characteristics. You can tell that a tree is a particular tree by its type, shape, DNA, and location.
As humans, we have identifiers that are obvious to other people, like what we’re wearing, eating, who we’re with, etc. We also have identifiers that are harder to see: our DNA, personality, preferences, life experiences, and so on. Within those categories, there are things that do not change, and there are identifiers that do change. What I ate for dinner last week is part of my identity, but it’s not a consistent part.
Because of the variety of identifiers, I’ve found it helpful to think of a person’s identity in three tiers, like a cake. The way God designed identity to work is that the bottom tier, the foundation, is the things that can’t change. On this level is all the things God says about you. The middle layer is things that can change but don’t often change. These include personality, strong preferences, and certain aspects of physical appearance. The top layer is the things that are constantly changing, such as what you’re wearing at the moment, how your hair looks, who you’re with, etc.
All together, these things make up who we are, and each little thing can be used to tell us apart from others. All told, there’s no one else in the history of the world that’s just like us.
Back to the cake analogy, the bottom layer is very important. That’s where we find our value. Remember I said when things are ordered the way God designed, the bottom layer only contains what God says about you. However, because of sin, we mess our cake up. We take things from off layer two or even three and stick them on the bottom layer.
Here’s where we come to the original question: what does it mean to “find your identity” in something? Basically it means you’re basing your value on that thing and how true it is about you. We can base our value on things that are supposed to be on the bottom layer of the cake, or we can move things down that ought not to be there, things like popularity, looks, money, a good job, loving family, etc.
It’s very important that we find our identity or base our value in first tier things, things that don’t change. If we don’t, we’re like the foolish man who built his house on the sand. The foundation for our worth has to be strong, otherwise, when it collapses, we will emotionally crash and burn.
Most people find their identity in things that ought to be in the second tier: their job, talents, friends, financial stability, etc. Human beings are generally short-sighted. Because of this, we subconsciously think that these things are safe for our identity, that they won’t change. But accidents happen. People get fired, end up in car wrecks and lose talents, buy the wrong stock and find their life savings gone, etc. When you find your identity in something that is suddenly gone, your self-worth plummets, you feel purposeless, and you become terribly afraid of a lot of things. It is a very unpleasant experience, and it often precedes people coming to Christ because they realize that any other anchor for their identity is worthless.
Finding your identity in the wrong things can have other negative consequences as well, even if that thing doesn’t totally disappear. For example, I might find my identity in my ability to sing. Now let’s say that I have a friend who one day tells me offhand that she’s not crazy about my singing; she doesn’t think it’s bad, but it’s just not her favorite. Suddenly my self-worth is under attack. I have two options: fight back or watch my worth go down in flames. If I fight back, my subconscious goal is to undermine the authority of her claim, which means I’m going to attack her character, ability to discern good music, etc. Now she’s on the defensive, and I’ve put our friendship on the rocks.
Now I might want to fight back but have enough emotional intelligence not to attack my friend, so instead I’ll seek out other people who will fortify my identity by telling me how great my singing is, I’ll try to get better, and/or I’ll try to change my singing somehow in an effort to change my friend’s mind.
Even if the thing you are basing your worth on is completely stable and never changes, like a multi-million dollar inheritance that you take good care of, the fact that something could happen to it is enough to cause you stress and paranoia.
Basically, finding your identity in something that is not rock solid is exhausting, stressful, and time-consuming. You may have been doing it for so long that you don’t even notice. However, if you manage to stop finding your identity in shifting things, I guarantee that you will notice a positive difference in your emotional health.
What are the right things to base your identity on and how do you practically do that? Those are the topics for the next few episodes. I hope you’ll join me then.
