Identity crises

This is not a word to solve your problems. It may even show you more problems than you thought you had. God's Word sometimes exposes wounds in our hearts, and they need to be exposed in order to be healed. We don't always need a miracle; sometimes we need a process.

The title is plural on purpose: we don't have one identity crisis, we have several, even when we think we've gotten rid of them all. This shouldn't be a burden, but a relief. When we see Jesus face to face, he will wipe away every tear (Rev 21:4). Until then, crises are opportunities to draw closer to him.

1. David pretending to be insane

The base text is 1 Samuel 21:10-15. Fleeing from Saul, David goes to Achish, king of Gath. The officials say, "Isn't this David, the king of the land?" Afraid, David pretends to be insane, scratching at the doors and letting saliva run down his beard.

We are talking about the man after God's own heart (Acts 13:22), the author of much of the Psalms. And this warrior drools into his beard in front of the enemy. How big was his crisis?

2. The crisis will come

No one is exempt. Moses, at 80, asked God to send someone else (Exod 4:13). The Solomon of Proverbs and the Solomon of Ecclesiastes seem like two different people, but he is the same man in different seasons. Jesus doesn't always take the anguish away, but he gives lightness and wisdom to get through it.

2.1 The enemy knows who you are

David was not king yet; Saul was on the throne. But the Philistines called him king. Samuel knew who David was, his enemies knew, and the only one who didn't seem to know was David himself.

After the storm, the disciples asked who Jesus was, but the demon-possessed man recognized him in his very first sentence (Mark 4:41; 5:7). The kingdom of darkness knows that you are a child of God and that you have authority in him, even when you don't feel it.

2.2 David's other crises

• Bathsheba: in the spring, when kings went off to war, David stayed at the palace (2 Sam 11:1). Out of the place of his calling, he fell into adultery and murder.
• The census: in a time of peace, he counted the army against Joab's advice (2 Sam 24). The count led to pride in numbers, and God never gave victory by numbers, as Gideon shows.

Often the problem is not understanding your destiny, but getting lost in yourself. Even so, David's repentance was as big as his sins, and God does not despise a broken heart (Ps 51:17).

3. Why we have identity crises

God breathed the breath of life into man, passing on something of himself (Gen 2:7). With sin, that identity was distorted. The cross brought restoration, and it began with the spirit: the spirit is what is born again, as Jesus explained to Nicodemus (John 3:6).

• Our spirit has already been made new. The challenge is learning to live as human beings, dealing with the soul.
• Christ freed us from the guilt of sin, but sin still influences us. Paul describes this war: I do what I don't want to do (Rom 7:19-25).
• Complete redemption will come when we are transformed (1 Thess 4:16-17), and we will receive a white stone with a new name (Rev 2:17).

4. The cycle of neediness

When man sins, God doesn't reject him: it is man who hides and feels rejected. That rejection creates neediness, a feeling of lack.

4.1 Need is not neediness

Need is hunger. Neediness is craving food even when you are full. Neediness is a black hole: it can never be filled.

• God meets needs, not neediness. David never saw the righteous begging for bread (Ps 37:25).
• We ask and don't receive because we ask to satisfy our own desires (Jas 4:3).
• Needy people drain other people's energy, and no one can satisfy them.

Jesus was so complete that he even postponed legitimate needs: his food was to do the will of the Father (John 4:34).

4.2 What we do and what we have don't define us

Sometimes we serve not out of purpose, but to prove our worth. Those who stand firm in God don't need to prove anything to anyone. The rich are not defined by their wealth, nor the poor by their poverty.

The church is not a tribe where you seek acceptance, but a family and a place of transformation. With each crisis, God uproots a little more of our ego and our neediness.

The cycle goes like this: neediness produces guilt, guilt produces rejection, and rejection produces an identity crisis. Walking with your head down isn't always humility; it can be a wounded identity.

5. The cave

After Gath, David went to the cave of Adullam, and God sent him about 400 men who were in distress, in debt or discontented (1 Sam 22:1-2). David became their leader. Sometimes God deals with our crisis while we help someone else with theirs.

• It's not about skills. Authority isn't earned: God gives it.
• God told Jeremiah, "Do not say, 'I am too young'" (Jer 1:7). He speaks to you from the truth he sees, not from your current reality.

John the Baptist, in prison, asked whether Jesus was really the Christ (Matt 11:3). The doubt seemed to be about Jesus, but it was about himself. Our doubts about God often reveal crises in our own identity.

6. Only the Father can tell you who you are

Your brothers and sisters can remind you of your identity, but only the Father can impart it. John called Jesus the Lamb of God, but the one who called him Son was the Father. That can only be heard in the secret place.

Jesus was the most rejected man (Isa 53) and the one who best understood his identity. He is the exact representation of God's being (Heb 1:3), and he came to teach us to live as children rooted in the Father.

Conclusion

Identity crises will come, but each one is an opportunity for God to uproot neediness and establish who he says you are. It is not what you have, what you do, what people say or your mistakes that define you. It is the Father's voice.

What neediness is God exposing in your heart in this season, and have you been seeking to hear from him, in the secret place, who you are?