Becoming Well With Liz Tafadzwa

Hello, BW community! I pray your week has been going great. If it hasn’t been particularly awesome, be encouraged to know that this too shall pass, and if it’s been incredible, be fully present for all of it. To my new readers, welcome to the BW tribe; you are already loved here, and to my regular readers welcome back tribe! This week’s topic is probably one of my top 2 favorites for the entire series. Holy Spirit has been impressing the issue of identity on my heart the entire summer, so I believe you are best off for a treat with this one.

Google defines identity as “the fact of being or what a person or thing is.” This is a concise definition, but not elaborate if taken at face value, so I will break it down as we go along. The first part says “the fact.” Emphasis on the word fact. I love that it does not say the opinion or the perception, but the fact. Which means the truth is based on evidence. Who you truly are is not based on someone else’s opinion or even your perception. Your true identity is based on evidence.  As a believer you are no longer identified as a lost soul, but a child of God. You are called God’s child because Christ is the evidence of that right to be a child of God.  John 1:12 says,  “But to all who believed him and accepted he gave them the right to become children of God. You now can identify yourself as your creator’s child.

The next part of that definition is “of being,” and being means the existence, nature, essence, or core of a person or thing. This is the part that scares a lot of people so they often settle for an image instead of discovering and living in their true identity. It takes work and time to reach a point where you are so assured of your true essence. Contrary to popular belief, it is far easier to not discover and learn your true essence and settle for an artificial lie, which is more of an image than an identity.  So, think of identity as being two parts: your universal & eternal part(child of God) and your essence (your personality, gifts, temperament, natural interests). That second part is who you are apart from what you do, say, or look. Most people confuse identity and image. When asked who they are, they talk about what they do or have done, how people perceive them, and attributes they think people will be impressed by. They think of their performance, looks, and how people perceive them when in fact it is an image. Genesis 1:27 says “So God created human beings in his own image(his nature). In the image of God, he created them, male and female. Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the seas, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”  God made your core nature to be like his. The first part of this scripture is referring to your character. The last part is a command God gives to us. But isn’t it funny how pop culture has historically celebrated material acquisitions over character? We all end up thinking our identity is in the things we have or do and not our innate character because it is not overtly recognized by people we can see. It will be a tough task, but It would be a tragedy if you spend the rest of your life grounding your identity in what you have, look like, and how you perform or what you have achieved. The other word for that is bondage. Many people in the world have lots of money in their accounts and have Instagram-perfect relationships, but they are not truly free.

Don’t get me wrong, an image is not a terrible thing if it matches your true identity because an image is simply a replication of what already is. It mirrors reality. The problem comes in when what you see has been distorted by trauma, low self-esteem, fractured self-worth, or rejection. People who struggle with body dysmorphia understand this better. They could have lost 100lbs, but when they look in the mirror, all they still see is the overweight individual they were a year ago. The truth based on evidence shows that they have lost the weight, but what they felt or how they were treated when they were physically larger severely affected them emotionally and mentally, distorting their reality.

“Your image is a replication of what already is”

There’s nothing as exhausting as maintaining an image that is not your authentic self and congruent with your identity. You know it’s killing you, but you continue working yourself to sickness trying to maintain that image because you fear the reality of who you will be if not that image. The question I have for you is,  would you rather endure the pain of an external facade to be approved by people whom you have to keep pretending for to keep, or survive the loss that may occur as you embrace the hard, but worthy journey of discovering your authentic identity? 

You have to get to a point where you are tired of maintaining an image and embrace the work of learning your true identity. I always say it takes work to maintain a false image, so if you are going to work anyway, why don’t you put in the work for a pathway that will at least lead you to freedom instead of bondage? The choice remains yours. I had to face myself in the mirror and say “This is nonsensical.” “This madness has to stop today because my unwillingness to do the work to learn my true identity has ushered me to this position of dysfunction and bondage.” I had to stop blaming God and people and take responsibility for my torment. God had already revealed my true identity, but because I was trying to get identity from places and people I thought would give me those answers, it kept me running around in cycles. I had to accept that appearing put together wasn’t going to remove my innate need to know who I was. I had to admit that the one I was fooling was myself and no one else. Listen, a time has to come when you face yourself in the mirror and say I can’t keep going with this madness. It may feel like it’s possible to live a lie forever, BUT I promise you one day, it will all come crashing down because the weight of the facade will eventually break you and force you to stop.

A lot of people don’t realize that they expose their lack of identity by the things they say, how they behave, what they post, their aloof entitlement, and delusional expectations. You learn a lot about people’s true beliefs, self-perceptions, fears, and identities oftentimes through their social media feeds and stories. It’s not always real, but everyone projects their idealized/euphoric version of themselves and what they desire to become and have. Why do you say you are good at something when you are not? Why do you take up roles that demand gifts you don’t have? Why do you work yourself to sickness in order to get straight A’s or make the most of money? Why do you say you believe in something with one crowd and change with another crowd? Why did you choose that career path when you didn’t have the makeup for it? Why do you automatically feel in competition with someone who possesses what you desire for yourself? All these questions unravel cracks in most of our identities. 

Jesus was the most secure person I know. He was so secure in who he was that it rubbed broken and religious people the wrong way. See, when you are secure in your identity, those not grounded in theirs often perceive you as arrogant or cocky. I’m warning you before it starts happening. They expect you to also constantly question who you are. Lack of identity over time turns into images and images are often very loud. Identity on the other hand is stable, quiet, but influential, subtle, but potent and bold, but gentle. When you discover your true identity, it completely frees you to function in your purpose. You work in synergy not against the grain. You stop the inner war that many people are in where they are trying to be something their not and rejecting who they really are. I was the latter person for a very long time and I promise you, you will not only neutralize who God made you to be, but you will also malfunction and arrest yourself in the prison of pretense. I worked so hard to run away from who I really was because growing up I was always a misfit. I had many friends and shut down a lot of leadership and speaking positions because I didn’t understand why I was always the one singled out. I thought, operated, and behaved differently from my age mates and God constantly separated me from the masses. Until I got a revelation of ME I hated being me. When God delivered me from that mindset, I was released to my true identity and completely fell in love with myself. I started to embrace the grace to lead and speak instead of resisting it. Believe it or not, I HATED that gift God has given me. I began to accept that though everyone wanted me to believe I was an extrovert, I could rest in my introverted nature and still be effective in what God has called me to do. I started to accept my nature of honesty and calling out phoniness and dysfunction. I tried to hide that part of me, but when my parents tell me of my childhood stories, I realize I have always been a bold challenger. I also started to accept my weaknesses and learn that they didn’t make me less of a person or less worthy of God’s love. This is the kind of freedom that people truly want. They want to be freed to be themselves and not be rejected or experience unconditional love withdrawn from them. Knowing that you are a child of God who is unconditionally loved by him will completely free you to be yourself and courageously embody the only stable identity as a loved child of God.

“When you are secure in your identity, those not grounded in theirs often perceive you as arrogant or cocky.”

So, are you fully aware of your identity or you have been slaving away to maintain a false image? Have you run away from the question of who am I because performance and your identity are one? That’s for you to answer. I want you to be fully honest with yourself and God. Get to the place where you are exhausted from living a lie. I know it’s scary to imagine waking up in the morning and admitting you have been a walking fraud. I know it will take courage to start letting people know who you are and surviving whatever reactions they will have. But, I want you to do it anyway. Jesus didn’t die for you on the cross to remain a pretense or stay locked up in a false image. Rise to the occasion and take ownership of who you are. That person is enough and remember,  if your identity has cracks, you compromise your effectiveness in the world. Those who are supposed to be helped by you won’t find you, because you are showing up as someone who is not consistent with your true identity.

I love you and I will see you on the next tribe.