When It Comes to Your Identity, You're More Than Okay

More Than Okay Series — Part 5

Who are you?

Really, who are you?

Let's start with who you're not.

You're not your job.

You're not your thoughts.

You're not your feelings.

You're not your personality.

You're not your problems.

You're not your past.

You're not your pain.

You're not your diagnosis.

You're not your failures.

You're not your shame.

You are so much more.

More than you realize.

So who are you?

You are the image of God himself.

You are created in his image — the imago Dei.

His image in you is the image he loves, as you, because that is the real you.

You are a child of God's own making.

A son or daughter of his own choosing.

You are God's beloved child.

What God says about Jesus when he comes up out of the water at his baptism is what God says of you:

“This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

“This is my daughter, whom I love; with her I am well pleased.”

— Matthew 3:17

God is fully pleased with you.

Right now.

As you are.

The problem?

We don't really believe it.

It seems too good to be true.

But isn't the good news that seems too good to be true God's kind of truth?

The belief that you're not beloved?

That's fear.

Just fear.

The remedy?

God's perfect love that casts out fear.

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear.”
— 1 John 4:18

And you'll know you're secure in that love when you no longer fear that you aren't loved — or that you ever could be unloved.

People don't like themselves all too much.

Charlie Chaplin once said,

“The problem with the world is that we all despise ourselves.”

It's time to believe the truth about what God says about you.

Time to pray this prayer if you can't quite believe it yet:

"Oh God, help me to believe the truth about myself, no matter how beautiful it is."

I know you often don't feel okay.

Or even more than okay.

But you are.

Whether you realize it or not, you are.

God sees through to the real you.

And he loves that real you.

The Real You

You.

The real you.

Beyond your thoughts, beliefs, and feelings about yourself is the real you — and that one is more than okay.

All the other things that go through your mind, and the feelings that come with them, are just that:

Passing thoughts and feelings.

Like boats floating down a river.

We get caught up in them.

We jump onto them.

We let them carry us away.

But the real you is the one who stands on the riverbank and watches them float by.

The you who observes them.

The one who notices them.

The one who knows you are not them.

That observer self is you.

Your essence.

Your awareness.

The one that is always more than okay.

That's the spiritual part of you.

And did you know that you're not just a human who happens to be spiritual?

You're a spiritual being having a human experience.

That gets at the essence of who you are.

One More Thing... About Sin

I know you're worried about being a dirty, rotten sinner.

But your sin — the ways you've missed the mark like we all do — is not dry rot within you.

It's simply a smudge on your beauty and belovedness.

Like a little dirt covering a diamond.

The cross and resurrection show us this is true.

All is wiped clean in God's love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness.

The diamond is still there.

The diamond has always been there.

You are the diamond.

At your core — in your true identity — you're more than okay.

You always have been.

Reflection question

When you set aside all the labels you've carried — your roles, successes, failures, and fears — what remains of the real you?

This reflection is part of the More Than Okay series — you can follow the journey below.