“Come to Me and I will give you rest – all of you who work so hard beneath a heavy yoke. Wear My yoke – for it fits perfectly – and let Me teach you; for I am gentle and humble, and you shall find rest for your souls…” Matthew 11:28-30 TLB
Has it ever felt like your world was turned upside down by something as simple as a change in job functions? Have you ever been crushed to learn that someone sees you in a completely different light than you see yourself? Has your confidence ever been shaken by criticism? Of course! These feelings are common to all of us. But it’s important for us to see that they occur through wrong identification.
Man is desperate for identity. The need for definition is the driving force behind many of the actions we take. And it is this paramount ego that makes it so easy to capitalize on anything that bears the label “self-help” or “self-improvement.” Without a sense of self we feel invisible and so we create a persona and project an image we hope others will see. When that image is misinterpreted we are quick to correct; if it is tested even further we are quick to defend. Why? Because it is how we see ourselves. It is what we believe about ourselves and if we are not what we believe we are then what are we? How will we know how to act? Who would we be?
I spoke to a woman a while back who was obsessed with the need to have all the answers. It was not her job to train her co-workers, yet she found satisfaction knowing she was the one they sought for information. If too much time passed without someone popping their head into her office to ask a question she’d find herself feeling empty. She was becoming painfully aware that she was hooked on the feeling she got when others looked to her for solutions. As people’s dependency on her grew she was even more identified by her role, which compelled her to keep up the charade – even though she was finding it difficult to complete her own job duties.
You see, Veronica didn’t have all the answers her co-workers needed. No one person does. In actuality, she’d spend countless hours researching their questions just to maintain her image as the “answer-man.” Her need to appear knowledgeable was wrapped up in her belief about herself and so, rather than admit she just didn’t know, (or suggest they learn how to reference information for themselves!) her whole life was stressed with the pressure of keeping up the front.
Needless to say, Veronica was miserable. She desperately wanted to let down her defenses but the fear of how others would perceive her kept her paralyzed. Veronica was living under the burden of identity.
What is the burden of identity? I use the phrase to refer to a false need to “be someone.” More specifically, that push we feel to prove our significance. There is nothing wrong with the intrinsic sense of value we’d all feel if we’d sit still long enough. That is God’s deep-seeded seal of approval upon our heads. It is there because the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the virtue and blood of Christ. In this vein we are all “somebody.” We are His beloved, forever chosen by God.
But there is another kind of identity promoted by the lie that feeds a false sense of self. It is the illusion of being someone apart from God. It manifests in many ways. It is that thing we do to make others like us. That thing we do to impress. It is that thing that we do to make sure everybody around us is happy. Or it is that thing we do to make everybody miserable as long as it makes us happy. You have one way and I have another, but common to all is the fact that it is that thing we do to keep others from knowing what we fear the most… that we are not enough.
Our greatest freedom comes when we can agree with these adversarial fears quickly. I know I’m not enough, and neither are you. We weren’t made to be enough. We are made to contain the One Who is enough. And as a container, we’re perfect! If we’d believe this about ourselves we’d also see that we’re lively vessels made for intimacy and union with the One Whom we contain. This is no ordinary vessel! We may not have a separate identity but compared with divine union who in their right minds would want one?
We’re made with the unique ability to mirror the Living God. We don’t have to be Him, we don’t even have to emulate Him. We simply need to be what we are; emptiness for His Infilling, negative for His Positive, weakness for His Strength, and the darkness for His Light. We are the tangible for His Intangible. As we come into the fullness of our intended union with Him we have the manifestation of God on the earth.
This is the greatest sense of purpose a man can have. Our conflict occurs with the broken images of who we think we need to be. Long ago the Liar told us that if we’d eat of this Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that we would become “like God.” We ate but we didn’t become like God; but ever since then we’ve felt like we should be. We honestly believe we should know the difference between good and evil. We think we’re sound judges, all the while calling good evil and evil good. We even try to judge God’s behavior. We have an intense desire to be right to the point that we cannot freely admit when we are wrong. We fill our apologies with excuses and explanations while quietly assuring ourselves that we are at least partially right.
All this for want of identity. The burden of identity is wrapped up in our belief in a lie. Jesus said, “Come to Me and I will give you rest – all of you who work so hard beneath a heavy yoke. [all of you who work so hard to preserve an image]. Wear My yoke [wear Me, My identity]- for it fits perfectly [you were made to wear Me - not a false and separate image formed in vain imaginations] – and let Me teach you; for I am gentle and humble, [let Me teach you how to submit to an inner rule, for even I did only those things I saw My Father in Me doing] and you shall find rest for your souls… [an end to the burden of a separate self]“ [Italics mine].
He’s asking us to lay down the role-playing and image-keeping. He’s offering a chance to let go of the lie and the false one it created. He’s asking us to simply admit, “I don’t know what I think I know! I’m not a judge and my interpretations apart from His mind are mostly incorrect. I have no ability to improve the flesh and my true being has no need to be improved. My substance is Christ and He’s already perfect.” My only work is to believe and rely upon Christ in me, as me. Let’s find the freedom of being “no one” so that He can be the Someone Who identifies us all.