My Identity- Who should I be?

I’ve been led to believe that I need to know or figure out who I am.  That I need to be true to myself.  The thing is, looking at who I was, led me to all the shame I talked about in an earlier post.  The phrase “to thine own self be true” only works for people who are already where they want to be.  For us normies out here we’re less worried about who we are and worried more about doing the right thing in the moment.  This gets even harder when you figure out that you’ve been doing things so wrong for a long time.  You want to act differently.  Maybe because you realize you’ve been yelling at everyone.  Maybe you get walked all over at work or by your friends.  Maybe you just feel scared and alone all the time.  If you ask yourself the question right now “who am I” you don’t like or even hate the answer.  For me who I am right now is only important if I have no desire to grow.  And we’ll talk about this some other day but just so you know if you aren’t growing then you’re going backward.  Life is like walking the wrong way on an escalator, as soon as you stop it takes you backward.

If I want to grow though the most important question I can ask is, who should I be.  Who do you believe you should be?  For Christians there are plenty of things the bible says you should be.  A lot of them overlap for non-Christians as well.  For me, I want to be a man of integrity, a wise man, and a confident man.  This should and will be different for you compared to me.  But that is the question you have to answer.

The bible says in Proverbs 27:19 As in water face reflects face, So a man’s heart reveals the man.  Many times the bible uses the heart to refer to the emotions, desires, the inner man.  Everything that we would call our identity.  When the bible talks about the heart it talks about who we are.  So reading the above verse we can see that the heart (our identity) reveals us not our actions.  Why? Because who we are drives our actions not the other way around.  Proverbs 4:23 says Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.  Who you are will determine your actions.  And you are who you believe you are.  Your beliefs drive your actions.  Your actions prove what you believe about yourself.  You act because of the belief then you believe because of the action you see.  The very definition of a self fulfilling prophecy.

That’s why we have to ask the question, who should I be?  If you want to grow the way you want to then you have to decide who you want to be and take steps to make it a belief.  Over and over in the bible we see God talk to us about changing the heart or who we are.

• Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Psalm 51:10
• I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:26
• Turn my heart toward your statutes and not toward selfish gain. Psalm 119:36

In all these scriptures we see God changing the heart when someone asks.  The heart can be changed.  Your identity and who you are can be changed.  The trick is changing your belief.  Once you honestly start to believe who you are your actions will start to change.  As your actions start to change you reinforce the belief you already have.

Christians get a boost here.  We believe that God does the work as we let him.  We have our faith in him as a natural belief we can lean on that we are different.  How does that look in the real world?  Confessing out loud what we believe.  As you hear or read things over and over you start to sub consciously believe it.  I have things written down and placed them where I have to read them. As I read them over and over I train my mind and my beliefs to change who I am.

So who should you be?  What do you want your identity to be?  Don’t fixate on who you are right now.  Focus on who you want to be.  Then take actions to change your belief in who you are.  Don’t focus on when you mess up.  You are going to.  Identity change and personal growth don’t happen over night.  Answer the question who you should be and take the steps to change your belief in who you are.  If you are a Christian lean on your faith.  Talk to God and ask him to change your heart.  Believe that the one who created you is still powerful enough to change you.