How do you see yourself? How introduce yourself to others? Do you define yourself by the major roles and responsibilities you hold in your life such as a parent, a spouse, a professional, an artist, a student, an athlete etc.? Or is your identity is eternal in essence?

Having an identity is mandatory and inevitable.

Whether you have framed your identity yourself or others have given one to you. Whether it is good or bad, true or false, we all have an identity. Your identity serves as a compass that guide your actions. It dictates how you present yourself to yourself, and to the world. Hence, the more solid and well founded your identity is at your core, the more you are able to flourish because you think, act and make decisions from that place.

Is it wrong to introduce yourself based on what you do?

No. Certain circumstances and settings demand that you introduced yourself based on your role. It helps others understand why you qualify for a role. It gives a reference to what major responsibilities you may hold.

Jesus says "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep" (John 10:11 NKJV). 

Jesus had to introduce himself based on his role, as a result his responsibilities. In that context, He needed to separate himself from bad shepherds.He also defines a good shepherd versus a bad one, when he said a good shepherd loses his life for his sheep. Therefore, at times, giving your credentials is necessary in your self-introduction. However, the danger becomes when what you do become your sole identity. When you roles and responsibilities become your core. At that point, they are the only things that give you a sense of self.

You can self-impose limitations.

Defining yourself by what you do can be dangerous because you can self-impose limitations that hinder you from becoming who you are called to become. For instance, you have defined yourself as a successful lawyer after years of studies and years into your career , then suddenly, God calls you to become a preacher or something completely unrelated to law at first glance. More than likely, there will be resistance to change course because of the lost of identity attached to taking a drastic turn into unfamiliar territories, after spending about a decade carrying this identity. It is daunting and uncomfortable already to fumble into something new and different from what you know, that any signs of failure means your identity is also shaken because it is fragile as a result of that self imposed limitations.

It makes your sense of self more fragile

When your roles and responsibilities are your only source of identity, your sense of self is more fragile. For instance, if you define yourself only as a mom and you pour yourself into your motherhood role day and night. This role encompasses every turn in your life with no other outlets. Do you become empty and lose your sense of identity when the nest gets empty when those children grow up? Do you become overcontrolling or demanding when they don’t need as much of your support, so you are trying to hold on as long as possible? if you define yourself as your professional career title, do you stop being you if for some reason whether change in location or health or otherwise you can no longer practice that profession and skill?

A lot of us have to repeat what we do on a daily basis to the point that we end up embracing that as our core identity. And we rate how good or bad we are based on how well or poorly we are performing in those responsibilities or professions. On a daily basis at the hospital, I have to introduce myself as a student doctor and when the doctors come in they have to introduce themselves as Dr.so and so, the surgeon or the family medicine physician or whatever specialty they have dedicated their lives into. And so by this constant repetition, you find yourself seeing yourself most of the time as that. If you are married, you see yourself as a husband or a wife. Social media has shown us that. When you look at someone’s Instagram for example: entrepreneur, social media influencer, personal trainer, a mom and a wife, a xyz student, a writer, a preacher, an entertainer etc. Most of those qualifiers are what people do. As much as they are important to help us reach out to who we need in a moment. You should not lose yourself in those set labels because in doing so your identity is too fragile. As a result, the self critic tends to be a lot harsher.

So what might be a better way to define yourself?

For that, let’s look into how God introduce Himself in Exodus 3. He called Himself I AM. We know that throughout the Bible God called Himself, the Alpha and the Omega, the Lord, the God of Abraham, of Jacob, of Isaac etc. But when sending Moses to the Isrealite, the name He gave was I AM. I AM has no attachment to a profession, no attachment to  responsibilities, no attachment to the power that He holds as God. It’s just His essence. It’s His core in every moment. He did not stop being I AM because Adam and Eve sinned. He did not stop being I AM because cruelty, greed increased across the world. He did not define Himself as I AM at the moment Moses asked Him for a name because He was already I AM. I AM shows the steadfastness of his identity, it’s forever present. It can never be in past tense or future tense. In the I AM there is eternity because present is forever present. It has no beginning or no end because it is not timebound, it is not season-bound.

The other interesting thing when you look at the name I AM, it’s open-ended, almost limiteless if you will. It is not bound to one or two responsibilities or duty. God can be the God of Abraham just as much as He can be the God of Isaac, just as much He can be the God of Moses and your God. He can be the healer, the provider, the rock, the waymaker, the deliverer, the lifegiver, the restorer, the God of justice, He can be love, be peace, be a mighty wind, be soft voice, He can be all things and be in everything. Of course we understand our limitations as humans but when you use what you do as the way of defining yourself, you limit yourself in more ways than you realize and that identity changes as things around you changes instead of being eternal and steadfast.

Your identity is based on who God says that you are as His child.

He calls you to be someone whether that is to be a parent to a child, to be a prophet, an intercessor, a healer, a counselor, an artist, a politician, an entrepreneur etc. but those are responsibilities and roles to play to serve others just like God Himself serves humanity. But they are not your essence. Your essence is what God says about you: Your are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world…a city that is set on a hill that cannot be hidden (Matthew 5:13-14). As you can see those are figure of speech but give you an idea of your essence and out of that essence you are able to fulfill your roles and responsibilities. As a light you are forever present. Being a light does not change whether you switch from being a lawyer to a preacher or from a single person to a spouse. It is eternal in its nature, it is not timebound or season-bound. It just is. It is not past or future, it’s constantly present. So it is not what you do that defines you because what you do constantly change with time, with seasons of life. But who you are needs a stronger and unshakable foundation that no matter where you are in life you never cease to be. Your essence never gets dimmed.

When you walk in the right identity then fulfilling your role and responsibilities naturally flow

because your identity guides your yes and no’s. It guides your commitment. Jesus never wasted time in doing something that was not in line with his eternal identity. As the son of God and as the Way the Truth and the Life, all he did follow that pattern. He went to the sick and healed them, he raised the dead, he reprimanded those who were being unjust, he taught the people who were ready to receive the truth. He did not waste his time to be with those who were in good shape. Like he said when they judged him because he was sitting with tax collectors or prostitutes, Samaritans and others who were rejected and looked down upon by the Jewish society of that time but his response was he came for those very people. Those who are sick, broken, and lost. So you see his role did not define him but his identity guided his actions and responsibilities. So in the same way, as much you have to introduce yourself based on the positions you hold, don’t let it be your identity. Be grateful for the roles you play to serve others but never let the temporary hold your permanent and what you do will never be permanent.