Have you ever asked yourself the question, “Who am I?” I would venture to say that most, if not all, people have asked themselves this question at least once in their lives. Some of us ask ourselves more often than others (pointing back at myself), but inside each of us is an innate desire to be known and to be understood.
Recently, I’ve been studying a system to classify personalities called the Enneagram and for years I have loved the Myers-Briggs Personality test. Both of these test, and many more, are trying to explain the human mind. They try to explain what our motivations are and why we do the things we do. They exist to help people find their identity.
Getting to know your strengths and weaknesses sound like a good thing, right? Right. These kinds of tests and self-reflection are useful tools that help us find what we are good at and what we need to work on. However, these tools are only helpful when we remember where our identity lies. Our identity is found in Christ.
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” – Genesis 1:27
We are created in the image of God. He puts bits and pieces of himself into each of our personalities. Every person that walks the earth displays some characteristic of who God is. This should fuel us to have compassion and love for everyone that we come into contact with. And yet, we still struggle with that. Paul addressed this very same fact in Romans 7, “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”
For the rest of our lives, we will be struggling with sin as we walk through the journey of sanctification. Sin not only causes us to DO things contrary to who God is but it also tells us that who we ARE is contrary to who God is. But God tells us a different story about our identity. We are adopted into His Kingdom as sons and daughters. We bear the image of Christ. Through Him, we trade our weakness for His strength. We trade rags for riches. We trade darkness for light.
“You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!” – Psalm 30:11-12
-Kelsey Turner