Identity Crisis

Its amazing sometimes how around the time that we begin to make good headway into discovering who we are, we are attacked exactly at the point that we just learned about ourselves! I remember when I learned that I am persistent person. It seemed like everything that happened over the next few weeks, seemed to try my persistence. It was as if now that I knew a piece of me had the persistent trait, life seemed to be testing my persistence, commitment, and consistency. And even after that, there were struggles that were making me think that perhaps the persistence that I now thought I had, was merely stubbornness that I was making myself believe was good. Then there were the trials that made me think about how persistent I should be; would I go on forever when my persistence was being stretched beyond what it should be (and perhaps then becoming stubbornness) or would I learn the time to be persistent and the time to throw in the towel. In every way, my new found idea that I am a persistent person was being weighed, and measured.

Interestingly enough, Jesus went through this same type of trial during his time on Earth. At the end of Matthew 3, Jesus is getting baptized by John the Baptist and at the very end of the that God opens up the sky and in an audible voice says, "This is my son, in who I am well pleased." The next verse, which is the beginning of chapter 4 says that immediately after the baptism, Jesus was sent to be tried by the devil in the wilderness. As he is being tested, the devil TWICE begins his testing with "If you are really the son of God then..." He attacked him directly where Jesus had quite literally just been told who he was. Jesus' identity was being tried at the heart of who he learned he was. Just like I was.

Fortunately, Jesus was able to overcome the trials that were against him, giving us hope and the blueprint of what to do when our identity had become under attack. Its knowledge in the Lord that enables us to overcome what adversities may attack us. In the end, its him that knows us the best .