Phil on Identity 

Identity – a word screamed out repeatedly by Poly Styrene, lead singer of the band X-Ray Spex over 40 years ago now. For those of you without a penchant for punk or Indie music, and the brutal realism often depicted in songs of this genre, it probably won’t mean much to you. However, the song in question deals with the struggles we all face in terms of who we are, how we fit in and how we cope (or not) accordingly.
Over my Christmas break I did a fair bit of reading. It was not by any means all Christian reading but, quite by chance (on separate days), I came across (i) a piece of scripture and (ii) a chapter in a Christian book that both dealt with the subject of identity.
The first was a short reading from Ecclesiastes: Chapter 1 and verses 1-11. I was initially struck by how startlingly honest the passage was. Going off on a tangent for a moment, I think it’s great that there are passages in the bible like this one that show it’s okay to open up to God about all the ”not so great” stuff that’s going on in our minds. It’s okay to be honest. Returning to the passage in question, it is a cry from the heart of King Solomon where he questions why we bother to work so hard, why we bring up families etc. when we are so insignificant. As Solomon points out, the earth is still there once we’ve gone … generation after generation. Essentially, Solomon is at a point in his life where feels that everything is meaningless. I think we’ve all felt like this at times and the point was reinforced a few days later when I read the chapter “I for Identity” in the challenging book “The A to Z of discipleship” by Matthew Porter. All of us, I believe, tend to fall into the trap of trying to justify our existence by the qualifications we get, the job we hold, the families we bring up and the hobbies we have etc. There is nothing wrong with striving for these things per se, but we shouldn’t let then dominate who we are. Through the likes of Facebook and Instagram we have made things a hundred times worse by offering the rest of the world a magnifying glass into our little world (not that the rest of world is actually bothered you understand) except that now we tend to create a false impression of ourselves as happy, fulfilled souls when we are not.
As mentioned above, everyone will feel this “What’s it all about?” sensation at times, even if through secular eyes we are viewed as successful. So how do we deal with this? The truth is that fulfilment can only come by defining our identity through Jesus. All that really matters is the timeless truth that he died for our sins. Once we believe this and strive to live in a way that emulates his example, then we will find an identify that leads to contentment.