If you are searching for your identity, here are some steps that I hope will help you. To find your true identity, you have to recognize your false identities, and you need to discover the things that keep you locked into those lies. You also need to listen to your heart, and listen to God. He knows your real identity. He created your true identity when He created you!
It is God’s desire to help you strip away all the junk that’s been piled up in your heart all these years – your junk, family junk, the world’s junk, the enemy’s junk. He wants you to let go of all that. Recognize where you’ve held onto things that block the truth. Find forgiveness for those who have dishonored your identity. And then walk with Jesus through the cross. That’s where you’ll exchange the lies for the truth of who you really are.
God wants more than anything to restore your true identity to you. Then you can be free to live as who you are meant to be; to enjoy all the desires God has put into your heart. And you can help others find the same freedom He offers.
Are you ready for freedom and true identity?
Here are some ways to start listening to God, and listening to your heart.
Exchanging Good For Bad
Take a pen and paper. Find a quiet place, preferably outside.
Be still.
Be quiet.
Take inventory of your emotions, good and bad.
Make two columns: Good. Bad.
Ask God to show you each emotion.
As He shows you, write the emotion, and ask Him where it came from. One at a time.
Forgive or release the person or the circumstance that caused each negative emotion.
Lay it at the cross.
Thank Him for the good. Offer Him the bad.
Ask God to show you what He wants you to have instead of the bad.
Write that down.
Re-check the negative emotion. Is it still there? If so, repeat the process, writing what you hear on each step.
Where Is Jesus?
Take out your creative journal.
Write your negative emotions, giving them a negative visual appearance.
Write your positive emotions, and give them a positive appearance.
Now draw what’s happening that would have put you in the places where you’re struggling.
Whatever the Lord shows you about the things you are wrestling with, draw that, and include yourself in the picture.
Now ask Jesus where He is.
Draw Him into the picture.
Ask the Lord what He wants to show you about that scene.
Thank Him for the answers.
What Are Your Passions?
Write down your passions, hobbies, ideal job(s). Now give those to the Lord and ask Him how to incorporate this into who He has called you to be. If you had a free pass to create your ideal work responsibility, what would it be? Now present it to the Lord and ask Him to open the doors.
How Do You Hear God?
As you go through this creative process, you might be asking, “How do I hear God?”
He’s not going to speak audibly. He speaks more loudly in silence. You would most likely have an unction to do something, or no sense of peace in moving. That’s how He speaks generally. If you don’t “hear” Him, you’d better not move. Or you’re going to have a whole lot of undoing.
P.S. The more you know Him, the less likely you are to feel Him, either. He will use anything. If a cardinal is symbolic for you, He will send a cardinal. That’s an example of the Lord using your environment to speak to you. A flower, an animal, a cloud, a puppy, newspaper headline, something somebody says.
If you wake up in the morning and you focus on God and read His Word, and ask Him to affirm His Word in your environment throughout the day, and then open your senses to awareness of those opportunities, you’ll start to see God affirm what He gave you in scripture that morning throughout your day.
To read the next article in this series, please visit Living out of Your Creative Self.
You can find all the Identity Quest series articles by following this link.