Lately I have been challenged with something. I have been challenged to look at my life and ask the question "where do I get my validity?"
I have heard it said, and said it myself, that my identity comes form God. He gave it to me and no one including myself can take it away. This I have pretty much accepted. Thing is, I don't feel it all the time. I have found myself saying "Ok, I believe my identity is secure, but I need to see the evidence of it." So what this lead me to do is look for reasons to validate that I am a man, a teacher, an athlete… just about everything that I would consider part of my identity.
I've found myself performing or trying to perform in all these things even though I would say that my identity doesn't come from the things I do but from God. This was a hard place to be in and it doesn't surprise me now that I have felt confusion about my identity in my life. Even after getting freedom from performing to prove myself to God, I have found myself performing to prove myself to me. I have looked for my validation from being trusted and given responsibility by others and telling myself it is because I am worthy of it because of my abilities and performance.
The trouble is, this is a captivity all of its own. In this state I am still dependent on my own performance and others opinion of it.
So what is the answer to this problem? As I pondered
this I thought of something. For some reason I thought about a couple sitting on a park bench together, completely happy and content to be in each others' company. Not saying anything, not doing anything, just totally happy to be there together. As I thought of this, I felt the Lord telling me "Tim, this is what everything is about. It's the reason I made you. To just simply be with you. We don't have to say anything, or do anything, but just be together. That is where my happiness and yours comes from. The simple pleasure of being together. Just BE with me. That is the reason for you. Its why you are valid."
Yeah, this has been messing me up a lot. In the best possible way though. It is the most freeing thought. My validity does not come from what I do or the abilities I have. It comes from my purpose. To be with Him. Christ exemplified this plainly. He would often withdraw Himself to be alone with the Father. We don't know what He did or said in those times. But we know the fruit of it. Everything He ever did. He himself said He only did and said what He heard the Father saying and saw the Father doing. How did He see and hear those things? He would go and just BE with Him. Everything else would flow out of that.
So even in spending time with God, its not about how much I read in the Word, or making sure I pray about all these cirtain subjects and questions, or even about saying or doing anything at all. I have started to find myself being filled up with a scource of life and peace I haven't known before, from just walking, usually not saying much of anything, but rather sitting in the word that the Lord spoke to me, to just BE with Him.
Image taken from google
