Identity

A number of years ago, I lost a job and I was astounded by the impact. I was disproportionately devastated. As hard as it is to admit, I realized that I had confused my role with my identity, confused my title with my purpose in life. The loss was more painful because I had allowed the job to become more significant than anything else.

In Ecclesiastes, over and over again Solomon seems to wrestle with this same confusion as he searches for meaning. In Ecclesiastes 4:8 he writes, “For whom am I toiling . . . this too is meaningless – a miserable business!”

Ironically, he writes with more certainty elsewhere in Proverbs: “A life devoted to things is a dead life, a stump; a God-shaped life is a flourishing tree” (Proverbs 11:28 - The Message).

In my season of loss I needed to be reminded that jobs come and go, but nothing will change my identity as a beloved child of God, or my purpose – to glorify Him. 

Psalm 62:5-6 became my refrain: “Find rest, my soul in God alone, my hope comes from Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; He is my fortress, I will not be shaken.”

One of the disciplines of my life has been to do a periodic spirit check and ask myself, “Today, would you be ok without this job, or that possession, or that place? Or would you feel destroyed without it?”

What about you? If you were meeting someone for the first time without any job title, degree, accomplishments, awards, clothing label, car, or home to define you, how would you feel? What would your family and friends say is the driving force of your life? What would you like it to be?

Paul gives us a good reminder in Colossians: “For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible . . . everything got started in Him and finds its purpose in Him" (Colossians 1:16 - The Message).

Laura Crosby serves as Director of Spiritual Formation for The Table at CPC

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