One night there was a group of us gathered to one side of the basement in the frat house. On the other end there was a smattering of first- and second-year students gathered around a hookah. One “ultra-cool guy” was even sporting a corduroy blazer.
One of my pledge brothers who was standing near me said, somewhat distraught, “I don’t think I would even fit in over there anymore” as he looked across the room at all the new blood. I quickly chimed in, “I don’t want to fit in there anymore.” He was concerned about the makeup of our organization, while I was simply saying that I realized our time had gone. It need no longer be the type of place we want to hang out because, as outgoing seniors, a fraternity basement is not the type of place we should fit in anymore.
I once heard in an English class that in a book, play, or any other story for that matter, characterization happens most often when the characters interact. The things we need to know most to understand people happen when they enter into relationship. As my college career drew to a close I knew it was time to move on. When I heard myself say, “I don’t want to fit in there anymore,” I learned something new about my character, about myself.
A few weeks later I was packing up my Mazda pickup truck with all my worldly possessions and beginning the seven hour drive down I-75 to Orlando. As I did, the reality of leaving the city in which I had lived for four years, and had just begun to call home, began to set in. There were some people, most of whom I didn’t know very well, I would be happy to leave behind; some people I wish I didn’t have to leave, like my friend Emily who I neglected to call before leaving because I didn’t know what kind of goodbye that was supposed to be. The common thread in all of those relationships was that I was ready to move on. I was leaving behind the semblance of a life that had been built up over four years of beer pong and loud rap music; class discussion and writing assignments; late-night talks and all-night road trips – and it all felt like it was happening in the appropriate time.
Still, even when it feels so very right, the scary part of moving on is when you leave behind all those relationships that seem to define who you are and you feel as though you may lose a little bit of yourself. As I drove away from it all, I knew I was no longer a beer-pong-playing, class-discussing, road-trip driving, rap-music listening kind of guy. Which seemed to beg the question, “What kind of guy am I?”
Shortly after I arrived in Orlando my entire family spent a week in a condo on Daytona Beach. What struck me over that week was how well we all got along. I’m now 22, the youngest of the four children in my family. I have finally realized that many of my friendships from high school will never be rekindled and two months out of college I can probably count on half of a hand the number of friends who will endure from that life stage. So as I spent a week with my siblings – laughed at each other’s jokes, sensed each other’s discomforts, listened to each other’s anxieties and aspirations for our respective life stages – I was amazed at how solid our relationships actually are. Now that I am at an age where I can begin appreciate how few relationships endure, I can also begin to appreciate the strength with which our family’s relationships have endured. And then it hit me – that’s the kind of guy I am.
The great thing about being around people who really know you is that, when you begin to forget yourself, they can remind you who you really are. My brother and sisters know me outside of the relationships I just left behind in Atlanta. They don’t necessarily expect me to run the fraternity, or win the beer pong title, or organize the road trip. They do, however, expect me not to like the feel of beach sand or salt water, to love the taste of tacos, and always to appreciate the value of a sarcastic sense of humor. They expect me to be exactly who I am, nothing more or less.
As I write this I am less than 12 weeks away from my life’s next big step. On September 28, 2008 I will depart out of Los Angeles with 60 other individuals in the 21-35 age range for an 11-month, round-the-world missionary journey. We will visit 11 different countries and, in teams of 4-6, minister alongside local Christians to the communities we encounter. I am excited about the relationships I’m going to find in the next year and the myriad of opportunities I will have to allow those relationships to shape and reveal my character. I am excited to get to know my teammates and for us to begin to minister to each other. I am excited to meet new and different people all over the world and to hear their stories and experience the ways that they try to live with God in their unique circumstance. Most of all I am excited to explore my relationship with Jesus Christ like I never have before.
Most of the time we go through life’s stages waiting for our circumstances to tell us who we are. Rather than seeking God’s plan for our life we wait on circumstances and react. It’s often too late that we realize those circumstances have backed us into a corner where we are the kind of person we never intended to be.
That’s what this next year is about for me. I don’t want to go on living a life where I constantly question my identity. Am I good enough, smart enough, cool enough, qualified enough, wealthy enough, well-rounded enough? No, I want to rest in the identity that has been reserved for me as a child of God. If we aren’t pressing into our relationship with Jesus Christ to learn each day the new facets of our character that He wants to reveal to us, we will always be missing a small part of ourselves. God has a plan for your life, and it fits perfectly with the person He created you to be. When you seek His face, you will begin to learn where he has gifted you and where he has made you weak, ensuring that in all things you will be dependent on Him while still being ready to play your part in His divine narrative.
When we live our lives in a relationship with Jesus Christ he asks only to be the people we were created to be – children of God, fully dependent on His sacrifice for our salvation. He speaks the truth into our life that, living with Him, we are free from sin; free to live a life walking in the footsteps of the Spotless Lamb. When everything around seems to be changing, and we feel as though our identity has been swept away with it all, there stands Christ, our brother and friend, ready to remind us that our identity is tied up in the story God had for our lives before we were created. It is a story of love and redemption where we are called simply to be children of God, giving Him the glory and living our lives to advance the Kingdom and share His Good News.
God is constant but life changes. As it does we learn new things about ourselves and we begin to wonder if any part of ourselves actually stays constant through it all. Even though many relationships come and go, there is One who is always there ready to remind us of who we were created to be.
