Hope Prevails

by Dr. Michelle Bengtson

  “Love Not Done with You,” Jason Gray, © 2014 by Centricity Music

  “The Remedy,” Ayiesha Woods, © 2006 by Gotee Records

  7

  Reestablish Your Identity

  You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

  1 John 4:4

  Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. Every other identity is illusion.

  Brennan Manning

  The enemy not only seeks to steal our joy and kill our peace but also desires to destroy our identity. Decades of interviews and observations in private practice suggest that many of the problems, struggles, and conditions we deal with result from a case of mistaken identity. In her book Clout, Jenni Catron says, “To know yourself, you have to know your Creator.”1 I have found this to be true.

  Throughout our lives, many voices clamor to be heard. If we do not remain vigilant about identifying which voices we listen to and hence believe, we will unconsciously exchange our beliefs about our identity for convincing counterfeits.

  God Created Good

  Do you ever feel small? Insignificant? Overlooked?

  Do you compare yourself to others and feel insecure or like you don’t measure up? Maybe you just wonder about your purpose.

  I camped there for many years. Born prematurely as a low birth-weight baby, I never did catch up in size to my peers. I did not grow after about sixth grade and have always wished for just another inch or two so I would measure at least five feet tall. But it was not to be.

  It doesn’t seem to matter whether we are tall or short, heavy or thin, rich or poor. We all have insecurities. We all sometimes wish we could be something or someone different.

  Early on, we begin listening to the lying whispers that color our perception of ourselves, others, and God. We are tempted to equate our worth with external factors: our financial situation, our relationship status, or our position or accomplishments.

  Yet regardless of anything we do, earn, or have, God delights in us as his masterpiece: “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago” (Eph. 2:10 NLT). God created us in his image. In doing so, he graced us with the ultimate compliment. After a child is born, nothing delights the parent more than when people remark about the baby’s resemblance to the parent. The same is true of God—he delights in the fact that we bear his image.

  The first instance of God blessing anything was in Genesis 1:22, where we read that “God blessed them” (Adam and Eve) and told them to be fruitful and multiply. God deemed all he made good but after creating man, he deemed it was very good (see Gen. 1:31). Since the beginning of time, God has looked upon us as a masterpiece and declared us good. He is incapable of making anything other than good.

  The Enemy’s Plot to Destroy Our Identity

  But there has been a plot against us since creation. Since the beginning of humanity, the enemy has worked to distract us from God’s view of us as good, to convince us otherwise. If we think back to the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were content and enjoyed the garden naked and unashamed. Things changed when the serpent entered paradise. He tempted Eve and lied to her, causing her to question God. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, he began his work as “the accuser of our brethren” (Rev. 12:10 KJV). So often we are unaware of our imperfections and flaws until the enemy uses others to bring them to our awareness. “But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:3).

  This was certainly true in my own life. Only three years old when I was stricken with an undiagnosable and life-threatening illness, I was left to deal with the physical and emotional ramifications the rest of my life. What doctors could never diagnose but now hypothesize was similar to polio or Reye’s syndrome left me of very petite height and with a physically deformed leg and foot. My feet are two sizes: one a normal woman’s size and shape and the other a little girl’s size and deformed.

  Perhaps peers didn’t know any better, or maybe they did. It didn’t matter either way—words still wound. Their taunts, jeers, and name-calling served to solidify the lying whispers of the enemy:

  “You’re ugly.”

  “People won’t like you because you’re different.”

  “You aren’t as good as everyone else.”

  “Since you aren’t perfect, you’re worthless.”

  I didn’t know I was different from my normally formed and able-bodied peers until they and the enemy of my soul painfully pointed it out. Then I couldn’t go back. From then on, all I knew was that I was “less than” everyone else.

  I know many whose identity has been shaped by who their parents are or who their parents say they are. Scripture says that the tongue has the power to bring life or death. Parents and other role models in our lives speak either curses or blessings over us, which have the potential to affect our identity. What we must remember is that just as some accept their identity based on who their parents are, we have the privilege of basing our identity on who our heavenly Father is and what he speaks over us, regardless of what our earthly parents say.

  Let’s return to the scene where our identity first came into question. Upon listening to the enemy’s lies, Eve disregarded God’s instructions, and desiring to be like God, she ate of the fruit and then gave some to her husband. As a result, their eyes were opened to their nakedness, and in shame they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.

  No longer free to roam unashamed in the garden, they hid from God among the trees when they heard him. God called to Adam, but he was reluctant to answer. Finally, Adam revealed his whereabouts and explained that they had hid because they were naked. God asked who told them they were naked? The same enemy who told them they were naked gladly points out our faults to us today.

  In the same way Adam’s identity fell prey to the effects of mingling with the enemy, being “different” affected my identity in many ways. Most notably, I never wanted to be the center of attention, for fear that my flaws would become the focus. I hid behind my own fig leaf. I dressed myself outwardly to hide my deformity and minimize the chance that others would see it and reject me for it.

  I also hid behind perfection. As a child, I believed the enemy when he warned, “Others can’t and won’t love you unless you’re perfect, so surely God won’t either.” Unknowingly, I became driven and very much a perfectionist in an effort to be acceptable and lovable in God’s sight.

  Who do you believe?

  Are you listening to the voices that say you aren’t smart enough?

  Beautiful enough?

  Good enough?

  If you are listening to those voices, like me, like Adam and Eve, you’ve been deceived.

  Our Identity in God’s Eyes

  God declared his works wonderful, and that includes us. “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well” (Ps. 139:14).

  Most assume the word fearfully in this context means we are to fear God. But in the original language, in this context, “fearfully” is not referring to us doing something but to the quality God gave us. Here fearfully means to be honored. This verse is praising God because God made us not only wonderful but also worthy of being honored!

  We tend to equate others’ identity with what they do and the parts of them we can see. People have judged and found me less worthy because of my petite stature or physical deformity, while others have attributed greater worth or position to me because of my profession. God does not use the same measuring stick. He looks at the condition of the heart. “The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7).

  Scripture repeatedly validates our identity. “To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the bel
oved” (Eph. 1:6 KJV). In the original language, accepted means “to be highly favored,” and beloved means “love.” What hope that offers because God, the Creator of the universe, affirms our identity as being highly favored in his love. Put another way, our identity comes from being his. “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine” (Song of Sol. 6:3).

  The problem comes when we don’t know what God says about us, so we are more apt to believe what others say. Before long, we say those same things about ourselves.

  As a young child, I loved writing. One of my greatest possessions was a diary—you know the kind, with a lock and key. Everyone I knew had one, and I wanted one more than anything. That diary was the first thing I can remember wanting so badly that it bordered on obsession.

  God firmly instilled in me a desire to write. I wrote articles for magazines and submitted them to children’s writing competitions, frequently winning my category. I knew I was destined to be a writer. Until . . . I began listening to the voices that said I couldn’t and I wouldn’t. In graduate school, my dream no longer appeared feasible, as my graduate school professors beat every ounce of self-confidence out of me. They convinced me I couldn’t speak or write. While I didn’t realize it then, I now know that Satan always attacks the area in which God has called us to minister.

  For decades I believed the words I had heard instead of God’s truth, which promises, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’” (Jer. 29:11).

  When asked to speak, I turned down the invitations, believing that anyone would do a better job than I. Or I reluctantly accepted but after speaking didn’t believe people when they complimented me, thinking they were “just being nice.”

  Over time I believed that my dream of speaking and writing was futile. I also believed the enemy’s lies that because of my height and physical deformity, no one would respect or believe anything I had to say. I became painfully shy and withdrawn. Instead of pursuing the longings in my heart, I put all of my energy into trying to be perfect in my job as a doctor.

  When times got difficult, such as during my husband’s illness, I did more and worked harder. For several years I worked over one hundred hours a week. I worked at the office until midnight, ran home for a shower and a nap, and then returned to the office by 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. Until I couldn’t.

  Afflicted by the devastating illness in adulthood that required me to be bedridden and sustained on IV nutrition and hydration, I could no longer be the go-getter I had become. In those devastating days of illness, I could not “do” or “be” and was forced to rest—not something this driven, perfectionist, workaholic knew how to do. I found myself at the end of myself; my identity was stripped away.

  As I cried out to God more fervently than ever, a change started taking place. He showed me that he never loved me because of what I had done for him. He simply loved me. Such a profound revelation for this doer who could no longer do.

  Sometimes we allow our identity to be shaped by the things we have done or the things we haven’t done and later regretted. The enemy loves to swoop in and whisper his lies to shame us into believing we are a disappointment to God. In my bedridden months, I had hour upon hour to reflect on the mistakes I had made:

  “You were too busy working to be a good mother.”

  “You’ve let your patients down by not being able to work and treat them.”

  “You were irresponsible to allow yourself to get so run down that you became ill, and now your family is paying the price.”

  I felt ashamed, embarrassed, and incapable of fixing the damage I replayed in my mind. God used that experience, however, to give me a revelation of his grace and mercy. He isn’t looking for us to be perfect or even productive. Jesus explained that the work God desires us to do is “to believe in the one he has sent” (John 6:29). When we believe in Jesus and accept him as our Savior, God sees us through the perfection of Jesus and calls us both holy and righteous—not because of what we do but because of who Jesus is for us.

  Jeremiah 31:3 confirms that God loves us with an everlasting love. He loves us no matter what we do or don’t do, what we say or don’t say, how good we’ve been or how badly we’ve messed up. Everlasting means from the beginning of time through eternity. There is no end to his love for me—or for you.

  This is the opposite of what the enemy wants us to believe. Just like he twisted the truth with Eve, he does the same with you and me:

  “Do you really think God can love you with your flaws?”

  “You really messed up big time. Surely God cannot forgive that.”

  “Why would God love you/bless you/forgive you/use you when everyone else is better than you?”

  I later underwent reconstructive foot surgery to fix the deformity from my childhood illness. My hopes were high for a new foot. A beautiful foot. A “normal” foot. When the surgeon allowed me to ditch the surgical boot and return to wearing my regular shoes, I spent hours one Sunday morning prior to church trying on every pair of shoes in my closet only to find that not a single shoe fit my foot. The surgery left me unable to wear even the few shoes I had been able to find in my presurgical mismatched sizes, and served as a reminder of my flaws and inadequacies.

  I had never been one to express to God my hurt and anger over my disfigurement. After all, I had read the book of Job. I knew how God responded to Job when Job asked, “Why?” But that day I had a temper tantrum with God. That day I cried years’ worth of tears in despair and frustration. That day I finally got honest and unburdened my heart and told God how I really felt.

  I eventually chuckled through my tears as I sensed him say, “At least you are talking to me about it now.” You see, I had believed the enemy’s lies when he had whispered into my ear:

  “Don’t tell God how you really feel. He’ll get angry and leave you.”

  “Quit being so superficial! How dare you complain about your physical appearance when there are so many people worse off than you.”

  “It won’t do you any good to pray to God for healing. If he really loved you, he would have healed you by now.”

  As my sobs slowed, an image was seared in my heart of Cinderella losing her shoe as she ran from the palace at midnight. I wondered, “What is that supposed to mean? Is that some kind of cruel joke?” I sensed God saying, “You are not your deformity. What I see is your heart, which is beautiful. I created you in my image. To me you will always be beautiful.” In the fairy tale of Cinderella, the prince searched high and low for her, not despite her lost shoe but because of it. In the same way, God searched for me and loved me perfectly in my imperfection. The enemy had taught me I wasn’t beautiful, but that didn’t line up with God’s truth.

  God Began a Good Work and He Will Finish It

  God knew you, your personality, and the choices you would make before you took your first breath. Jeremiah 29:11 assures us that God knows the plans he has for each of us, and they are good.

  So what about when we feel we have stalled and are not advancing along his road map for our lives? Or we have veered from his plan? Or we have gone our own way and set our own course, as I did for so many years when I took on the false burden of being my own provider?

  That is when the gifts of God’s grace and mercy are so precious. God graciously forgives. His Holy Spirit continuously guides and teaches. In his mercy, he gives us time to learn all these things through his leading and through our experiences.

  God promises in Philippians 1:6 that “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” He doesn’t give up on us. He continues to work with us, in us, and through us until Jesus returns.

  One of the most problematic issues I see in terms of embracing our identity in Christ is that we succumb to self-hatred. When the enemy offers up our faults for inspection, we agree with him. We compare ourselves to others and deem ourselves less worthy, less valuable, less usef
ul. What have you decided you are less of when you compare yourself to others?

  We cannot agree with two kingdoms at once. When we agree with our enemy’s assessment, we disagree with God’s truth. The more we say derogatory statements about ourselves, the wider we open the door for self-hatred to walk through and take up residence in our beliefs.

  What if you stopped listening to the father of lies and asked the Father of Light what he thinks about you? When tempted to review your faults or beat yourself up, what if instead you stopped and asked God for an honest appraisal? “Father, you know I’m not feeling too good about myself right now. Help me to see myself as you do.” That might just change everything.

  Friend, that was the prayer of my heart for a couple years straight. I consistently prayed and asked:

  that God would give me an accurate perspective of him (because I knew life experiences had colored my perception of him)

  that God would help me understand how he viewed me

  that God would help me view myself the way he viewed me

  Transformation of my mind and revelation in my heart did not happen quickly. I had to surrender my faulty thinking and exchange it for his right thoughts. I had to take every thought captive, which meant determining if my thoughts were coming from God or from the enemy of my soul, who wants to destroy me.

  What if we decided to no longer let the enemy destroy our identity and dealt with the issue of self-hatred? What if instead of going down the road of comparing ourselves to others we stopped and said, “Father, I’m about to beat myself up, but before I do, why don’t you tell me what you think of me? How do you see me, Father?” Wouldn’t that change everything?

  For decades I had no idea what God said about me. Church taught me that I was a sinner, and I slunk under that cloak for far too long. But God said that even while we were sinners he sent Jesus to die for us (Rom. 5:8) because he loved us so much that he couldn’t bear the possibility of us being separated from him.