I've heard a
lot of reasons why people don't want to devote their lives to Christ.
The most common: “I don't want to lose my individuality. I just
want to be myself”. It seems that most people believe that when you
become a Christian, you lose your personality and your freedom to be
who you are. They
think that “following our heart” and coming to be known for
something is how we find out who we are, but that is not the
case. Have you ever seen those books or blogs with titles that go
along the lines of: “The World According to Me”? As humans, we
tend to think that our thoughts and opinions radically change the
world as we know it, and that our perspective on life defines the
world. In reality, this is completely flipped. By living in the
world we aren't defining the world, we are letting the world define
us.
Whether
or not I accept it , I didn't shape myself into who I am today. All
of my habits, hobbies, and ideas came from a friend, a relative, or a
stranger. Whether they were written or spoken, temporary or
permanent, they came from somewhere else. As Oscar Wilde put it:
“Most
people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions,
their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation”. So what makes
me any different than those around me? Am I not just like everyone
else? My
individuality is not defined by what I wear, how I talk, or who I
hang out with. It's not my hobbies, skills, or even my personality
that makes me unique. My identity, my only true individuality, is
found in a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Contortionist
Extraordinaire
We've
all heard of labels. Jocks, preppies, band geeks, emos, skaters,
nerds, stoners, theater buffs, goths, and loners are all examples of
classic public school stereotypes. If you excel in any type of
varsity sport, you are considered a jock, whether or not you tutor
kids in math or passionately love Shakespeare. If you tuck in your
shirt and know everything about computer programing, you are called a
nerd, even if you can throw an amazing spiral or sing like David
Archuleta. Everyone is stereotyped into these little labeled boxes.
These
boxes not only have labels, there is also a set definition for each
one. What do you think of when I say 'jock'? Are you picturing an
arrogant, party-loving guy who has no manners, no sense of hygiene,
and barely a high enough GPA to graduate? Or when I say 'geek', do
you imagine a skinny kid that gets bullied, wears thick glasses (with
tape in the middle), has a billion allergies, and spends a lot of
time in front of his computer? We are
influenced by these expectations tremendously, even to the point
where we start to live how others expect. So then why do we try to
contort ourselves into these pre-conceived identities? It's simple:
to fit in.
When
I went to public school, I tried everything I could to squeeze my
personality into one of these boxes. I was a skater one year and a
jock the next. I went goth for a while and then decided that preppy
was the way to go. I dedicated my all to being a band geek, then
switched to loving theater. Back and forth I went, from one thing to
the next. The problem was not that I didn't have any interest in each
area (I truly did), the real issue was that my personality was not
planning on becoming a professional contortionist. To put it plainly,
I was not able to fit myself into only one of the labeled boxes
before me. I'm not the only one with this problem. The
reality is that no one can be labeled with just one word. Some are
better at contortion than others, but no one truly fits in one box.
Me
According to the World
When
I was in 5th
grade, there were only two things I wanted in the world: a scarf-hat
and a Tamagotchi pet. It seems ridiculous (well, it kinda was), but
it was all I talked about from Christmas to my birthday. What was so
special about these two things? Nothing at all. You could buy both
for less than $20. They weren't exotic or rare; I only wanted them
because every girl in my class had them. I liked them because they
liked them. The crazy thing was, by the time I got them, the fad had
passed and I hardly ever used them. I lost the scarf-hat and the
Tamagotchi pet got put through the wash one too many times. I had
only wanted them because all of the popular people in my class had
them.
Contrary
to popular belief, if you live in the world, you are designed by the
world. By squeezing ourselves into these boxes, we are letting our
personalities be pre-defined. What to do, who to like, how to act,
and, essentially, who we are, are all laid out before us. By living
in the world, you are actually losing your unique identity, no matter
how hard you try to hold on to it.
“Through
others we become ourselves.” -Lev S. Vygotsky.
When
I went to a public high school from 7th to 9th
grade, I was around bad influences all the time. Most of my friends
smoked and drank. It was just the the thing to do. I never objected
to them doing it around me, but I had made up my mind to not do it
myself. I never felt the urge to try either smoking or drinking and
so I naturally assumed that being a part of the party crowd had no
influence on me. If anything, I thought that I was influencing them
for the better.
At
this school there was a boy in my class named Dedrick. He was in the
popular crowd and we never really talked. But one day as I was
putting my books away in my locker, he came up to me. “Sam,” he
said, “I don't understand why you hang out with those stoners.
You're better than that.” The thought blew my mind. “Those
stoners” were my closest friends. Why wouldn't I hang out with
them? I just shrugged my shoulders, put the thought out of my mind,
and went on with my life.
But
it all came crashing back at me the summer after my sophomore year. I
was at my family's lake cabin for a month and all of my friends and
cousins were up. There is a small resort a couple of cabins away
called Lincolnwood, and a narrow trail through the woods connecting
it to our cabin. It was the Fourth of July weekend and I was hanging
out with a couple of friends at Lincolnwood.
I
don't remember whose idea it was, but suddenly there were beers in
our hands. Now, you have to understand that I have never had the
slightest temptation to drink. I saw exactly where alcohol took my
sister and all of my friends. I was not drawn to it at all, but for
some reason I drank that beer, and another one, and another one. I
don't remember much about that night, or even the entire weekend. I
just remember being very confused and frustrated when it was all
over. Where had my resolve gone? I had been determined not to drink,
but it was like my common sense had taken a vacation for the weekend.
It had taken some time, but the influence from my friends in public
school had come back to me.
Recently
on a school tour in Washington, I sat next to my friend Scarlett on
the bus. Because she's from the south, she has an unmistakeable
accent. The longer I sat next to her and talked to her, the more I
gained a very slight, and yet undeniable southern accent. I wasn't
trying to talk like her (I secretly prefer British accents), but I
was still influenced by her sweet southern drawl. A lot of the time,
influences that shape our characters are so subtle, that they creep
in unnoticed. And even if we do notice, all of our efforts to keep it
away fall short.
The
Depths of Despair
I
know, it seems rather depressing. I had to come to grips with it
myself. The curtain of activities and talents I had put in front of
me didn't make up my identity, no matter how hard I tried to believe
they did. With all of the superficial stripped away, I had nothing
left. I was just one person in a world filled with billions more.
Nothing of mine was original. Where was my worth? What was the reason
for living?
In
Love Beyond Reason, John Ortberg says,“Objects may be
indistinguishable from each other; one brick is pretty much like
another, and bricks are eminently replaceable. But each human being
cries out to be noticed as special, as not just one more of the same”. That was me; I wanted to know that I mattered to someone,
that someone valued me as unique.
A
Glimmer of Hope
We
all have individual personalities. God handcrafted each of us to be
different. In Help in
Daily Living, Ellen White says, “None should be mere machines
run by another man's mind... Stand in your God-given personality. Be
no other person's shadow. Expect that the Lord will work in and by
and through you”. God doesn't want me to be anybody except
who He designed meto be. We cannot hope to deflect the world's
influences in our own strength. Only through knowing God can we truly
be ourselves.
In
Doug Bachelor's words:
"Regarding
the matter of who we are in the Lord, I think we are more likely to
think too small that too big. Our motivation is important–we want
to know who we are in God for His glory. We shouldn't look to the
world to find out who we are, and we shouldn't be ashamed of who we
are. Too often we're too preoccupied with being popular in the world,
but it's more important that we're popular in heaven. That's where
we're ultimately going to be judged...Seek great things for God,
and He will show you who you are."
In Who Do You
Think You Are?, Doug Bachelor states, “To truly understand
ourselves and who we are, we need to try to understand how God views
us. We need to understand ourselves from a viewpoint outside of
ourselves. We need to understand that God knows us and loves us
anyway. We need to understand that He sees from a perspective that
isn't limited by what other people or even by what we ourselves
think”. God saw my sinfulness, but He loved me so much He
sent His Son to die for me, so that I if I believed in Him, I would
not perish, but have everlasting life.
In Love Beyond
Reason, John Ortberg writes, “To be loved means to be chosen.
The sense of being chosen is one of the very best gifts love bestows
on the beloved. It means someone has seen me as a unique person, and
that someone desires to come closer to me, to be on the same side as
I'm on. Someone believes I have a significant contribution to make”.
Through a relationship with God, I have worth. In knowing God, I have
an identity, one that really matters.
The
Truth
When
we live in the world, our God-given personalities get overridden with
the world's version of us. In the world, we cannot be ourselves, we
can only be those around us. When we devote our lives to God we don't
lose who we are, instead we gain a permanent identity. So who am I
ultimately? I'm not a good clarinet player, a math geek, or even a
sanguine. I am a child of the Heavenly King.
