The Greatest Danger Is Forgetting Whose We Are

One day, a little boy became separated from his parents in a crowded store. Within minutes, he was frightened and confused. A store employee noticed him crying and knelt beside him. “What happened?” she asked. “I can’t find my mom and dad,” he said. She gently asked, “What’s your name?” He answered. Then she asked, “Who do you belong to?” The boy immediately said his parents’ names. In that moment, something changed. He became a little more calm. He still didn’t know where he was. He still didn’t know how to find his parents. But he remembered who he belonged to. His circumstances hadn’t changed. His identity hadn’t changed either. He wasn’t a lost boy. He was a cherished son who had become temporarily separated from the people who loved him. The truth about who he was had never changed. He had only forgotten it in a moment of panic. Sometimes life does the same thing to us. We spend years trying to figure out who we are. We search for identity in our accomplishments, our careers, our titles, our income, our relationships, our family background, our successes, and even our failures. Many of us also define ourselves by the painful things that have happened to us, resulting in us seeing ourselves as victims, broken or even irreparable. But while those experiences shape our perspective, they do not define our identity. The greatest danger is not that we underestimate our own power. The greatest danger is that we forget whose we are. Scripture tells us: “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are.” — 1 John 3:1 Notice that John doesn’t say we might become children of God. He doesn’t say we must earn the title. He doesn’t say it depends on our accomplishments. He says, “That is what we are.” Before you achieved anything. Before you failed at anything. Before you were praised. Before you were criticized. Before you were wounded. Before you were healed. God knew you. God loved you. God called you His. The world teaches us to build our identity on what we do. God invites us to build our identity on whose we are, and that one distinction changes everything. Because what we do can change. Titles come and go. Money comes and goes. Relationships begin and end. Health rises and falls. People’s opinions of us change. But God’s love does not—it never will. Trauma often distorts our identity. It whispers lies. “You are damaged.” “You are unwanted.” “You are unlovable.” “You are nothing.” God speaks the truth: “You are Mine, you are cherished, you are precious.” When we truly understand that truth, something remarkable happens. We stop living for approval. We stop trying to prove our worth. We stop measuring our value by our accomplishments. We stop allowing our wounds to tell us who we are. Instead, we begin living from the security of knowing that our value was established by God long before we ever accomplished anything. That’s what happened to me. Before I knew Jesus, I thought—I knew because I was told—that I was not wanted, not loved, and shouldn’t have even been born. I lived as one told those things would—trying to be unnoticed, head down, standing in the back, hiding in the shadows. Then I was introduced to Jesus. Because I didn’t understand how a good God could let bad things happen to a little girl, I looked at Him as the “clockmaker God,” as someone who created the world and everything and everyone in it and then stepped back to watch the chaos that ensued without interfering. After years of reading my Bible and listening to good Bible teachers, I experienced an inexplicable, supernatural, resolution to a seemingly impossible situation—otherwise known as a miracle. (I’ll tell the whole story in a different article and video.) I knew then that God was not standing back, detached and uncaring about His children. I had always been a hard worker, but after that first miracle, I raised my head and looked to God for specific direction. I quit my job, started my own business, and began to work hard to glorify God—no longer to earn my right to live, but to love God and His people. A life of miracles ensued. I went from believing that the strength we search for is not found in ourselves. It is found in the God who created us, loves us, and calls us His own. We often think our greatest problem is that we don’t know who we are. But more often, the real problem is that we’ve forgotten whose we are. You are not your success. You are not your failures. You are not your title. You are not your income. You are not your trauma. You are not the worst thing that ever happened to you. You are not the worst thing you have ever done. Your deepest identity is this: You are a beloved child of God. And that changes everything. Reflection Question What would change in your life if you truly believed that your worth comes not from what you do, but from whose you are? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rhondasciortino.substack.com