Where is your ID?

By the time you read this article, Brittany and I will have returned from our trip to California. You may have seen a couple of cute or fun pictures of us with my brother and his family, or with her sister and her family. You might even have seen a picture of us with the Pacific Ocean. But what you didn’t see was the panicked few days when we did not know where Brit’s Driver’s License was. For a few days we did not know where this valid form of ID was. Without ID she would not be able to fly. 

We did not know her license was MIA until 2 weeks before the flight. We had operated each day on an improper assumption that this ID was in her wallet. We only found out that this ID was misplaced when she went to a job interview.

This made me think about how often we lose our sense of personal identity without it ever registering. How many days we do simply operate without intentional and focused effort to be who God declares us to be? What event motivates us to circle back, look around, and produce honest to goodness identification?

It is easy to pick on teenagers for just going with the crowd. We can see it clearly when a kid no longer is living in accordance to their actual interests and convictions. They will change their hair, wear different clothes, use different slang, or “cop an attitude,” or slip into dangerous and sinful habits.  Hopefully someone lovingly reminds them that God calls them to something so much richer, fulfilling, and joy filled. 

But who calls us out?

Who calls you out?

I watch many adults who went to church their entire childhood end up never living out the identity they claimed as a young person. I have watched many people claim the identity of being one with the resurrected Jesus speak or act in ways which would make the “sinners and tax collectors” that Jesus hung around blush. 

I have watched myself act with an impatience that makes me hang my head when I think about how much more patient God is with me.

Friends, it took an interview for a job for us to realize that we had a case of missing ID, but I submit that we do not want to have a crisis of spiritual identity to realize our ID is lost. Do not wait for the impatience to become an angry outburst. Do not wait until your inability to forgive becomes calloused bitterness. Do not wait until drunkenness, an affair, or violence to check to see where your ID is. Take this current moment to pause, prayer, and regroup.

God calls us to live as foreigners and strangers in contrast to the patterns and ways of the world. We can easily slip into lackadaisical and complacent attitudes, thinking that we are all clear. I urge you, do not go another moment with this thinking. God is calling you back to Himself, where true joy, peace, and love exist.