Identity Confusion

I keep seeing all this news about identity struggles. People are so confused over how to define themselves in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, family connections, natural abilities, and life purpose, as if any of those attributes adequately define us. Our society has identity confusion alright, but that's because they fail to acknowledge the true source of their identity. The new social order seeks to deny we are first and foremost created beings, made in the image of God. As Paul David Tripp wrote: "You and I aren’t the authors of our own stories. We are God’s idea, we reflect his design, we exist for his purpose, and we have been commissioned to do his will. We didn’t think ourselves up, and we didn’t emerge by chance out of primordial soup." Every aspect of our being, including our gender, ethnicity, heritage and life experiences are all according to His will and purpose, not our own. As long as we reject this truth, we will never fully understand or find peace in who or whose we are.

Just as a cake cannot tell its baker it is a prime rib, a biological male cannot pronounce to his Creator that he is female, wave a surgical wand, and magically become a female. Similarly, Rachel Doležal cannot become African American simply through cosmetic pretending.

We can choose unbelief, rejecting God's design and plan for our lives, but our beliefs can't change our biology in the slightest or cause us to no longer be created beings who are ultimately accountable to our sovereign, true, loving, and good Creator. When we look to Him for our identity and purpose and accept His Lordship over our lives, the truth becomes clear, and we find perfect fulfillment in our identity as children of God.

Thoughts while Spinning on the Potter's Wheel

Do you ever feel like you are spinning around and around, never getting anywhere and pressed in on every side? I was thinking about how that feeling in life is a picture of clay on a potter's wheel when our life class teacher just happened to teach on Isaiah 64:8 this morning.

"But now, O Lord, you are our Father;
we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand."

Whether the constant spinning in circles or striving but going nowhere is the result of our own stubborn independence and unwillingness to receive direction from God or because our loving Father is intentionally taking us through a season of profound change, God is still our sovereign potter who is in the process of molding us from a lump of clay into something beautiful, fashioned for a significant, eternal purpose. We get to choose whether we will resist His work in us and continue pretending we are in control while utterly lost and helpless, or we can rest in Him, finding perfect peace in His sovereignty, goodness, and love as we let Him have his perfect way with us.