Are you leading from identity or for your identity?

I hate to say it, but my identity had gotten wrapped up in my title. “Pastor.”

When I hit a low point, I knew I needed to make a change. I had heard about pastors taking a sabbatical to rest and recharge.

I had no idea what I was in for. 

If you get your identity from the wrong things, it will keep you running on a hamster wheel to sustain that identity. I’ve worked with people who got their identity from status, their job or a certain lifestyle, but not me. I’m too spiritual for all that. Right?

I was in for a very rude awakening.

 After the first layer of stress and brain fog finally lifted after a month or so into the sabbatical,  I saw how much I had let my identity get attached to anything other than my relationship with God.My title. My ability to produce. My performance. My ability to provide. My income. What my wife thought of me. What people thought of me. What friends or family thought of me. Of my performance in life. Anything besides what my Father in heaven thought of me. 

The problem with attaching your personhood to the temporal and finite things of this life is that they can be taken away… so who are you without them??

And sometimes God in His mercy will remove things from your life so you can see clearly.

Thankfully, God is always ready, willing and able to pull you out of the muck and mire and put you back on the solid foundation of Jesus Christ. 

God began to show me my value and worth was not based on my performance. The title of pastor doesn't matter to Him. He cares about a heart that loves and obeys Him. He wants to see a character that looks and loves like Jesus. We are His children; not his slaves and He wants our souls to be healthy and at peace. Not striving endlessly to earn worth and approval. 

Our souls need something unchanging and everlasting to anchor to. Only then will we be free from the wind and the waves of this life. 

We are loved by a Heavenly Father. We are accepted in Christ. We are redeemed. Forgiven of our sin. Adopted. Reconciled. Blessed.  Sealed with the Spirit.  Approved. With Nothing to prove. Jesus already proved it for you. We have worth. We matter. The blood of Jesus proves it.  This is the Good News.

Before we are ever called to do anything we are called to become like Jesus. Start there. Everything seems to work out when we keep that as the first priority. What we do flows out of who we are. I’m not sure why we always want to get that one backwards.

Who or what have you let define you—other than God? What might change if you lived from an  identity anchored in God’s unchanging truth instead of the shifting sands of insecurity, performance and status?