Where Is Your Identity?

This is a question I have found myself returning to many times over the years, especially in seasons when life wasn’t unfolding the way I had hoped it would.

If I’m honest, I have discovered that the heart is remarkably quick to let something other than Christ answer the question, “Who am I”

There have been seasons of waiting where I subtly allowed the waiting itself to become part of my identity without even saying it out loud.

The Holy Spirit, in His kindness, has often corrected me and reminded me that seasons are not identities. Delays are not identities. Failures are not identities. Pain is not an identity. Success is not an identity.

Something stands out to me when I read about the woman who had suffered from bleeding for twelve years (Mark 5:25–34). She was known by her condition then, and even today, when we speak of her, we often call her “the woman with the issue of blood.”

Yes, she had suffered hurt and loss.

Yet before Jesus, she was far more than the suffering that had marked twelve years of her life. She was a woman He saw, loved, and restored. He addressed her differently:

“Daughter.”

That single word reminds me that while circumstances may describe part of our story, they were never meant to become our identity. Jesus delights to call His people His own.

That has often made me ask myself a question:

Where is my identity?

Perhaps that is a question we all need to ask from time to time.

There are many ways we answer the question, “Who am I?”

We may think first of our name, personality, family, nationality, education, work, title, relationships, achievements, or even the season of life we are currently walking through.

These things are part of our story and certainly tell us something about ourselves, but none of them is strong enough to carry the weight of our identity.

Our circumstances change.

I have experienced seasons of long waiting and seasons where God has graciously fulfilled those very prayers. Life has taught me that both seasons are temporary.

Careers change. Relationships and relationship statuses change. Finances change. Our appearance changes. People’s opinions of us change. Even the way we feel about ourselves can change from one day to the next.

Ecclesiastes 3 reminds us that there is a time and a season for everything under heaven.

So, what happens if we build our sense of worth on something that was never meant to remain?

When life is going well, we may subtly or openly begin to define ourselves by what we have achieved.

When life looks different from what we hoped, we may begin to feel forgotten, left behind, unworthy, or somehow less valuable than everyone else.

Comparison and striving begin to take root, and before long, we find ourselves asking the world around us to tell us who we are.

But Scripture offers us something far more secure.

Our identity is found in Christ

For those of us who belong to Jesus, the deepest answer to “Who am I?” is no longer found in a title, achievement, relationship, failure, possession, or season. It is found in Christ.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.”
2 Corinthians 5:17

In Christ, we are not simply improved versions of our old selves; God has made us new.

Our past does not have the final word over us, nor do our failures or successes. Instead, Christ does.

Through faith in Jesus, we have been welcomed into God’s family.

“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.”
John 1:12

We belong to Him!

And because the One to whom we belong never changes, our identity does not have to rise and fall with every changing season.

Jesus Christ is “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). That means our deepest identity is anchored in Someone infinitely more stable than our circumstances.

The world gives us changing labels

Single or married. Parent or not. Successful or unsuccessful. Beautiful or ordinary. Educated or uneducated. Included or rejected. Comfortable or struggling. These are just a few of the labels.

Many of us have worn one or several of these labels at different points in life.

Some of these labels describe our circumstances for a season, but none of them defines us.

A woman may be single today and married years from now. She may enjoy financial stability in one season and walk through uncertainty in another. She may receive something she once prayed for and later be asked to surrender it.

Life changes, but Christ does not. And that is why identity in Him brings such wonderful freedom.

When our identity is in Christ, we no longer have to live before the constantly changing audience of the world. Instead, we live before One.

We are not our best day or our worst one

When our identity rests in our accomplishments, success can produce pride and failure can produce despair. But when our identity rests in Christ, neither success nor failure gets to determine our worth.

We can receive God’s gifts with gratitude without allowing them to become our identity. And when we stumble, suffer, fail, or walk through deeply disappointing seasons, we do not have to conclude that we have somehow become less valuable.

Our circumstances may change, and our emotions may fluctuate, but God remains faithful.

Today, by God’s grace, I can say something I couldn’t always say with confidence:

I know whose I am.

I know who defines me.

I know that my past does not have authority over my future.

I know that earthly things are temporary, but Christ is eternal.

And I know that even when I do not understand the season I am walking through, my life still belongs to Him.

And yet, knowing these things does not mean I never forget them.

There are still moments when life becomes difficult, disappointment weighs heavily, timelines shift, or circumstances begin speaking louder than the truth, and I find myself needing to return to the Word and remember again who I am and, more importantly, whose I am.

Perhaps you have moments like that too.

There is grace for us there.

We do not have to pretend that we never struggle with our identity once we know the truth. We can simply return again and again to what God has already spoken. Our feelings may waver, but His Word does not. Our circumstances may make us question what we know, but they cannot change what is true.

Sometimes remembering our identity in Christ looks very ordinary: opening the Scriptures again, rehearsing what God says about those who belong to Him, and allowing His truth to quiet the other voices that have grown loud.

We remember.

We return.

And we rest again in what has always been true: we belong to Christ.

Here is another truth that has become especially precious to me: one day, every waiting season will end, every disappointment will give way to joy, every tear will be wiped away, and we will stand before the Lord Himself, where there will be no more pain, no more tears, no more sorrow, and no more longing. At that time, there will be everlasting peace in His presence.

Remembering that eternal hope has often helped me loosen my grip on temporary labels.

The safest place for our identity

There is wonderful security in knowing that our identity is not something we have to manufacture.

We do not have to prove our worth.

We do not have to compete for it.

We do not have to spend our lives searching for enough approval to finally feel secure.

We do not need to strive.

If we are in Christ,

Our lives are hidden with Him.

We are new creations.

We have been welcomed into God’s family.

We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for the good works He prepared beforehand for us (Ephesians 2:10)

Our lives have meaning because they belong to Him.

So perhaps the better question is not simply, “Who am I?” but rather, “Whose am I?”

The secure answer for believers in Christ is: We are Christ’s.

I cannot think of a safer place for our identity to rest.

“The secret is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances.”

— Elisabeth Elliot