Identity

Identity

Once you had no identity as a people; now you are God’s people. Once you received no mercy; now you have received God’s mercy.

A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO, friends of ours took their family to Sweden. On a visit to Drottningholm Palace, my friend Samantha ran into trouble. Though she had prepurchased tickets for the castle on her phone, she couldn’t connect to the internet to download them.

Noticing two women descending the large staircase, she asked one of them if she would mind helping with the tickets. Despite her attempts, the woman couldn’t get it to work either. She regretfully passed the phone back and continued on her way. After some trial and error, the ticket issue was eventually resolved.

As they waited for their tickets to be scanned, Samantha noticed postcards, one of which featured the lady they had just encountered.

“Excuse me, sir, can you tell me who this is?” she asked the staffer.

“Crown Princess Victoria,” he replied.

Wide-eyed, my friend realized that she’d just asked a princess—a member of the royal family of Sweden—for help, without even realizing it. On one hand, it seemed like the worst sort of luck to overlook such an important detail. But on the other hand, perhaps the princess didn’t mind the mistaken identity. After all, my friend had simply seen her and thought, There’s someone who looks like they can help. Don’t we all want to move beyond the labels that normally define us and be known as people who can help?

Our identity is formed by more than the roles that define us. We are more than family members, friends, our occupation, our social class, or any other label. Rather, the qualities and beliefs that distinguish us from someone else are what forms our identity and, as Jesus-followers, our identity is ultimately found in him. The words we speak, the actions we take, the way we move in this world—in all of those details, our lives should reflect the ways of Jesus. Like the princess who looked like someone who could help, let’s let the love and grace of Jesus be what forms our identity in this world.

Lord, help us find our identity in you. Give us the wisdom to recognize what that looks like in our daily lives. Amen.

-Kristin

One Good Step: List some labels that you or others have used to identify yourself. Reconsider them through the lens of Jesus and his example.