Identity

I've been thinking a lot about identity lately. Folks at my church have been talking about it for the better part of a year. A more through treatment is given to the topic in Instruments in the Redeemers Hands, but in slightly different language.

What exactly is identity?

• That which you pour time, energy, and resources (to use a more Christianese term, it's what you "worship")
  
• That which gives life meaning and purpose
  
• That which, if it went away, would cause the most despair
  

When talking about identity, it's usually pretty easy to come up with a list of places where we put our identity. I like to think of them as coming from one of three buckets:

• Things: job, hobbies, sports, travel, experiences
  
• People: (girl|boy)friend, spouse, family, friends
  
• Ideas: causes, politics, art, music
  

Why does this matter? Christians believe that the only identity that will bring lasting joy (and that which pleases God) is an identity in God himself. Ecclesiastes is a fantastic book on the matter. Here's Solomon talking about identity in ideas (wisdom):

When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on earth, how neither day nor night do one's eyes see sleep, then I saw all the work of God that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out. (Eccl 9:16-17)

Enough with the background. None of this is really new. I had an epiphany over my recent holiday, and I thought I'd share it. Here's the big idea: the lack of an identity in some thing can be an identity itself.

So let's unroll what I mean be the lack of an identity. I don't mean simply lacking an identity, but actively disassociating one's self with an identity, typically joined with an identity that is opposite in character. Let's call this an anti-identity. Here are some examples:

• I'm a Democrat... and I'm not a Republican
  
• I'm married... and I'm not single
  
• I live in the city... and not in the country
  
• I'm a Christian... and I'm not an atheist
  

The anti-identity is "I'm not ____."

What is it about the things we identify with that makes them so pernicious? It's that as we are drawn to them, they do not draw near to us. It's an asymmetric relationship: generally speaking, the more we put into these, the less we get back. They consume the mind and our time, making devotion to God an ever more difficult endeavor. Having an anti-identity does a similar thing -- yet normally it's not that we get less back, it's that we go into identity debt.

Only focusing on that which we positively identify with, and ignoring those things that we actively don't identify with is only getting at half of the idolatry in our lives.