My Identity

Well, well, well, here we are again. Just another post by this young chap. I know lately I have been doing a whole lot of preaching on this thing about topics from God's agape love to my own personal struggles to what it means to be a man of the Lord. Today, my hope with this post is not to condemn you or hurt you, but instead to love you and to try to fill you up as much as I can with my words.

This is what my day has shown me, and what the Father has put on my heart....

This morning, I woke up and really had a heavy heart. I woke up came downstairs and felt the urge to just go back up to bed and spend my day in prayer, worship, and growing closer to the Lord through sermons/testimonies. God really has a profound and unique way of communicating with me. I mean honestly, he knows I spend a lot of time with people, and connected with people over social media and the Internet as well as in person, so you know what the Lord does. He uses that to communicate with me. When I pray I still have a conversation with him, but I usually don't have those "WOW" God moments there. That is just not who I am. I am the kind of person that experiences God through others and through serving, but that isn't what I want to talk about. Actually, that is a part of what I am talking about. Sweet! Anyway, back to the ranch here.

The Lord really showed me today during my day to be with Him what my identity is. He showed me today that all the negative thinking that I have about myself and others is non-existent because Jesus Christ died upon that hunk of tree to wash all of that clean from my mind and from all our minds. We do not have an ounce of negativity in our bones or in our bodies or in our souls because Jesus was not the only person who died on that cross. WE DIED TOO. Then three days later we also rose from the dead and became eternal. We are eternal if we accept Jesus into our hearts. If we let the Holy Spirit do as he pleases in our hearts and let him chisel away all that is unholy and all that keeps our hearts from fully basking in God's glory. That is not all that God did today. He showed me how to figure out my calling, and to then finally figure out who I am in his eyes. Let me dig into that right now.

I think the Lord has some of the greatest timing in all this by the way because I have kind of been doubting myself with the choice I made to go to La Crosse, and then even my decision to pursue ministry after I get a degree at UW-L. I thought maybe I am not called to be the guy who can teach and be a leader of faith because of just who I am. Maybe I am supposed to be a doctor or just an English teacher some where, but today the Father really did some reassuring. I saw today that God has given me an unbelievable gift of being a good speaker, a good listener, and just a person who cares. That is part one of finding your identity. Finding your strengths, and finding the things God has gifted you in. For some of you that is in music, for others it is that you are unbelievably smart, and for others it is because of your leadership skills kind of like me. It doesn't matter what it is because we all have those gifts from God that add to our calling. That is part one of finding your identity. Find your gifts. 
 
The second part of this process is to apply those gifts to a passion. A passion is something that breaks your heart to see, and you wish to apply serious effort to in order to make a difference in. For example, for me my passion is to make an impact or a difference in the youth no matter where they are from. It breaks my heart to see, and hear the types of things that happen to kids in their middle-school to high-school years. It is a struggle to say the least, but I want them all to know that they are not alone, and that God is behind them no matter what others think or say about that. Again, this really varies from person to person and it really doesn't matter what it is as long as you are glorifying God through it you are golden. So the second part is: Apply gifts to a passion.

The third and final part of this process is to glorify God through it all. This part for me really hit me because as I went through high-school I really never glorified God for all my accomplishments and all of my trials. I am just now starting to realize that even though I might be going good or bad in this world that it is all for the goodness of God.  This right here is probably the most important part of this process because a lot of people can do the previous two things and yet not be in their right calling or know their identity. To glorify him in all we do is something that really leads to your identity as well because in this part of the process you are doing all you do, and all that happens to the glory and goodness of the Lord. You are putting his will above yours and submitting what the world says your identity is to what the Lord says your identity is. God says our identity is through him. It all goes back to him people. It all goes back to our relationship with him. Jesus is our identity, and the cross is our sign of that. Whenever we look at the cross we should think of Jesus, and then think of us dying up there with him. He is our identity, and all we do should be through him. So the last part of the identity process is: Glorifying God through it all. 

That is what the Lord really has put on my heart lately just because of circumstances, and with my day of prayer today. I just hope you guys are at ease, and that you take these things to heart because I did today and I am totally ecstatic about what the Lord has in store for me in my future. I am totally a new person because of what happened today, and I am so ready to go out and live present-future instead of past-present like I was. That is my identity, and how the Lord worked through me all in one day to figure it out. I love you all reading this, and I pray tonight that you all experience answering the call as I have. God Bless.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." - Romans 8:28