You don’t see things as they truly are. You see things as you are. As our identity, or our perception of our identity, shifts and changes, what we see shifts and changes with it. It is one thing to grasp the value of that truth; it is another to walk it out. So I want to get practical, and give you four keys that will help you step into the identity God has given you.
The Setup Hasn’t Changed. I Have.
For many years, probably twenty, I would fly into the United States and, every single time, I would be interrogated. Maybe I had the wrong face. “Why are you here?” It was a horrible experience. On the plane I would dread it, like a trip to the dentist later in the day. When I came through, I would text my wife: “Phew, I made it through. They let me in.”
Now I am an American citizen, with Global Entry or whatever the trusted traveller programme is called. Sometimes they hardly ask a thing: “Did you buy anything? No? Welcome home.” As I walk through that easy experience, I glance to my left and see other people who are nervous, struggling and being interrogated. The setup hasn’t changed. I have changed. The context hasn’t changed. My identity has changed. Instead of a red European Union passport, I now carry a blue American one, and my identity changes my experience.
I don’t mean to be political here, but think of someone living in a country undocumented (in France people say sans papiers). Other people in that same city are thinking, “This is so modern; I’m really enjoying living here,” while that person sees a threat. When I walk around Liverpool and see police officers, I am glad they are there for law and order, to help old ladies with their shopping and to direct traffic. If I were lost, I would go straight up and ask them for directions. If I were there illegally and I perceived them (notice the word) to be a threat, my interaction with them would be completely different. As written in Proverbs 23:7, “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.”
Key Number One: Ask God to Show You How You See You
You may want to write this down. Ask God to show you how you see you. Here is my experience of what a lot of Christians try to do: they jump straight to what is really key number three, asking God to show them how He sees them.
Underneath, we are walking around with a settled identity, a whole set of beliefs under the hood: “This is who I am. I’m good at this. I’m worthless at that. I’m a sinner.” Then, on top of all that, we try to bake in, “But I’m a new creation.” Forgive the analogy, but think of that frightened person who feels they don’t belong and are about to be caught. You could put a nice suit on them, but all of those insecurities would still be on the inside. It would not change much. We are often trying to put a surface identity on top of something else.
So allow God to show you how you see you. As we have seen, one of our challenges is that it is hard to see ourselves. We think we are one way when, in reality, we are another. As David prayed in Psalm 139:23–24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
I don’t think you need to rummage around for years doing this. Ask, “Lord, how do I see myself? What are the formative experiences, the culture, the crises? Show me me.” At times the Lord can give you a download in a moment. In my experience, He usually leads you through a journey (not a long one) of noticing your reactions. Notice how you react to people and how you respond to them. Notice what you say and do around certain people. Notice what you fear in certain situations. It is amazing how many things limit us that we don’t even know are there.
I love an example Tim Ferriss, the podcaster and author, gives (without my recommending everything he does). He challenges people to go into Starbucks ten times and, every time, ask for a dollar off. Nobody goes into Starbucks and asks for a discount, especially with a big queue behind them. The social pressure, the barista, the person behind you, the feeling of being an idiot: all of it is illustrative. His point is that after ten times you would realize the fear isn’t real. It is only on the inside of you. It is that identity thing in you.
In the book Rees Howells, Intercessor, there is a story of the Lord telling Rees Howells to walk through the streets of London with no hat on. Plenty of people do that now, but in the early part of the twentieth century it would have been like walking around London with no trousers on. You were not dressed if you didn’t wear a hat in public. Working men wore a flat cap, aristocrats wore their own kind of hat, and you could literally judge somebody by their hat. To be sans chapeau was an embarrassment. He walked those streets in obedience to God, and I believe the Lord was communicating something to him.
Key Number Two: Ask the Lord to Expose the Lies and Rewire You
Key number two is to ask the Lord to take away those things, to rewire them and to expose the lies within them. There are some parts of how you see yourself that you need to make peace with and accept. If you see yourself as short in height and you are short, then you are short. Say, “This is how God made me, and that’s awesome.” If you are eighty-five, accept that you are eighty-five. Don’t try to be eighteen; believe me, we all know you’re not.
Most of the ways we see ourselves don’t need to be changed so much as re-scripted, realigned, rethought and reframed. Maybe you have been divorced. Maybe you have been fired or gone bankrupt. Maybe you have been raped. Maybe you have lost a child, or been through something horrific I can’t even begin to imagine. I am not excusing or minimizing anything you have been through, and no part of me is saying, “Move on and get healed.” What I am saying is, come to the place where you ask, “Lord, how do You see this? How do You want me to frame this? How do You want me to construct my reality around this?” As written in Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
Key Number Three: Ask God to Show You How He Sees You
Key number three is to ask God to show you how He sees you. Ask Him to speak to you. Even if your response is, “What? That’s not true. That’s not me,” allow Him to give you your identity. Allow Him to declare to you how He sees you.
The Lord came to Gideon and declared who he was. As written in Judges 6:12, “The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valor!” Everything about Gideon was saying, “No, I’m not. I’m not a mighty man of valor.” God, however, was not describing how Gideon saw himself. He was declaring how He saw him.
Key Number Four: Put On That Person
Key number four is to put on that person. Gideon began to act like a mighty man of valor. That very day, he did something only a mighty man of valor would do. If you will start acting as if what God says is true, you will grow into it. God says you will lay hands on the sick and they will recover. So what do you do? You find a sick person, put your hands on them and say, “Be healed in the name of Jesus.” As Paul writes in Ephesians 4:24, “Put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”
If you will do what God says in that identity, over time (like going back into Starbucks ten times) you shift into being that person. God declares the identity to you in key number three; then you practise living it. The more you practise, the easier it gets.
I play the guitar. I am a rhythm player, not a technical one, but I love getting creative and playing higher up the fretboard. Most people are taught to play chords only at the bottom end of the neck, which is fine, but there is so much fun in exploring the whole fretboard. Every time I learn a new chord, it is as if I am telling my fingers, “You stay there, and you stay there.” Everything in me says, “This hurts. This doesn’t feel natural. Let go and go back to the old way.” If I keep practising, the motor skills kick in, and after a while I am on autopilot. Let me challenge you to do the same with your identity. Ask God to show you how you see you, let Him expose the lies, receive how He sees you, and then practise new creation until it becomes natural.
Scriptures for Study
Proverbs 23:7, Psalm 139:23–24, Psalm 51:6, Jeremiah 17:9–10, Romans 12:2, 2 Corinthians 10:5, Philippians 4:8, Judges 6:11–16, Judges 6:25–27, Ephesians 4:22–24, Colossians 3:9–10, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Mark 16:17–18, James 1:22–25, James 2:17, Hebrews 5:14, 1 Timothy 4:15, Philippians 3:13–14, Isaiah 43:18–19, Romans 4:17, 1 John 4:18, 2 Timothy 1:7, Psalm 34:4, Galatians 2:20, Romans 6:11
10 Questions for Reflection
- Where have you seen your identity change your experience of the same circumstances?
- What settled beliefs about yourself are running “under the hood”?
- Have you tried to put a new-creation identity on top of old beliefs? What happened?
- What reactions or fears in your life reveal how you really see yourself?
- What everyday “Starbucks discount” fear might God be inviting you to face?
- Which parts of how you see yourself do you simply need to accept and make peace with?
- What painful experience is God inviting you to let Him reframe?
- What has God declared about you that feels untrue or unlike you?
- Like Gideon, what is one action you could take that matches who God says you are?
- How can you keep practising your new identity until it becomes natural?
