Daily Thoughts - Weekend Extended Edition - Light on Identity

But you are God's chosen and special people. You are a group of royal priests and a holy nation. God has brought you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Now you must tell all the wonderful things that he has done. (1 Peter 2:9)

On Thursday a group from the YMCA went to view the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool. This was part of the Christian Spiritual Development (CSD) month on the theme of slavery and freedom.

An interesting exhibit was on the strategy of the slave owners to destabilise the African slaves they had recruited by separating them from family and treating them little better than their own cattle. Hundreds of years later young people from an African-Caribbean background still struggle with a sense of identity – not just what it means to be black, or African, or Caribbean but even what it is to be a man or a woman.

The strategy of destabilising people by robbing them of their identity is not a new tactic, neither is it one that only those of African descent suffer from. The effects of the slavery of sin leave humanity itself deluded by a false notion of who they are. This has been brilliantly masked in the whole drive of ‘self-esteem’ where the focus is to look at the self first and get a good feeling about yourself before engaging with others. The problem here is the same problem that is seen in asking a broken pot to fix itself – though it may recognise it’s brokenness it evidently doesn’t have the resources to fix itself, however the pieces are readjusted. What is patently needed is the Master Potter who knows how to mould these pots as they ought to be. So when the focus is on the Potter, rather than ourselves, the healing process is likely to be substantial, meaningful and whole, rather than a shallow cover job.

Realising the great job that has been done in our lives in being brought from darkness into light, realising who we are as a result of this great transaction we are thus free to share with others what’s been done in our lives and who others can look to in hope of experiencing real enlightenment. The identity crisis is really over in the light of who God is in Christ and who we are in the light of His love.

For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
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