Identity

Fellow Christians will say, we need to know our identity in Christ. At first I did not know what to make of this statement. It baffled me. What it means is that we need to come to an understanding of our relationship with God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I am a child of God. I am the daughter of the Most High. I am an heir to His kingdom. I am a friend of God. I am also here to do His will.

For my spiritual growth and maturity, I need to identify with that, rather than the identities I have taken on before, identities which were essentially labels that people placed on me, either to tease me because they liked me, because they disliked me, because they were jealous of me or because they were trying to protect me. To give yourself an identity based on your habits or peers can give a person a sense of belonging, but if the identity is destructive, it becomes a prison.

Identity often has to do with family. When someone asks us about our identity, we think of our date of birth, our family name, where we come from and where we grew up. I shed a tear tonight, thinking of both my parents, whom I have lost, my mother last year, my father seven years before. In neither cases was the journey to their final destination without pain and suffering, and it stirs my heart when I think of them, as they formed such a large part of my identity.

I am reminded again that when you give your life to God, you become part of the family of God. You become grafted into the lineage of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful for my family in Christ. I am so grateful that not only am I the daughter of Astrid and Axel Meyer, but the daughter of the Lord Almighty. Amen.