Comparison happens. It happens here in Nashville, and it’ll happen on the race. It’s happening already among squad-mates. We read each other’s posts and think, “her words are more eloquent than mine”, “He’s more spiritually prepared than I am”, “She’s way more Biblically trained than me.”
I was given advice by a World Race alumnus to figure out my identity pre-race. Of course, God will use the field to wreck my teammates and me and give us completely new identities in Him. But think of all the heartache we’d be saved entering the race confident in our identity in Him, rather than comparing our relationship with him with others’.
I am incredibly blessed by the community that surrounds me. And once again, they are meeting me right where I hurt. Where do I find my identity? Our community has begun a study on Ephesians, “Who do you think you are” a look at our identity not as members of the industry, but as creations of Christ alone…our identity not in comparison to one another’s gifts, talents, and successes but our identity as Christ’s.
It took me weeks to fill out the “about me” tab on this page, “Who do I think I am…”
I’ve defined myself by what school I graduated from, who I was dating, who I toured with, who I was going to tour with, how busy my fall or spring looked.
This has led to a lot of pain.
When my degree didn’t land me the job I wanted thought I wanted…I felt like a failure.
When relationships have ended…I’ve felt unlovable.
When I was touring with Michael…I battled becoming prideful.
In just the past year:: I have tried to buy my identity, I’ve described myself by whichever artists I was on tour with, and perhaps the most recent…I’ve allowed sufferings to define me. Honestly, for the past 22 years I haven’t built my identity around Christ. I’ve placed what others think of me above what God does. I’ve been afraid of insignificance and consumed by acceptance.
Eighteenth-century Jesuit Jean-Pierre de Caussade wrote,
“The great and firm foundation of the spiritual life is the offering of ourselves to God and being subject to his will in all things. We must completely forget ourselves, so that we regard ourselves as an object which has been sold and over which we no longer have any rights. We find all our joy in fulfilling God’s pleasure — his happiness, his glory and the fact that he is our great and only delight. Once we have this foundation, all we need to do is spend our lives rejoicing that God is God and being so wholly abandoned to his will that we are quite indifferent as to what we do and equally indifferent as to what use he makes of our activities.”
Think about that for a second.
Whether I’m on the World Race or selling T-shirts, am I daily dying to my desires and myself? Disregarding myself to the point that my only joy comes from God’s pleasure? What freedom in knowing that my only duty is to rejoice that God is God and it doesn’t even matter who I am!
My prayer has changed.
I pray this morning to be so wholly abandoned to his will that I stop trying to define myself… that I would not desire to identify myself by anything other than a servant to His glory.
May our sitting down and our rising up::
Contribute to your Kingdom’s work.
