Identity: Part 2

In my last blog post I explored the difference between personality and identity and challenged you to re-evaluate how you view yourself.

Today I want to talk about how God views us.

We’ve already discussed His love and presence in hard times, but what about our identity?

Who are we to God?

Psalm 139

I’m going to use Psalm 139 to study and discuss this topic. In this passage, David is talking with God. Therefore the “you” refers to God.

When my family and I were preparing to move overseas as missionaries, we had to undergo several trainings held by our mission agency. During one of these trainings, me and my brother were challenged to learn the first half of Psalm 139.

It is a passage that has stuck with me throughout the years and has helped me through very difficult times. I encourage you to read, study, and, if you desire, memorize it, to constantly be reminded of who you are and Whose you are.

You Are Known

Psalm 139:1-6

¹You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.

²You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.

³You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.

⁴Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.

⁵You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.

⁶Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

Read that again.

God has searched you, studied you, and He knows you.

Yes…you.

He knows what your thoughts are before you even think them. Your habits and schedules are memorized by Him.

He knows you.

Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.”

Do you realize what that means?

It means that the Creator of the sun and wind, the Maker of the stars, the King of all the seas, the Artist of the skies knows…you.

You Are Wanted

Psalm 139:7-12

⁷Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

⁸If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

⁹If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, ¹⁰even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

¹¹If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light become night around me,” ¹²even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you

We can’t escape God.

No matter how far we go or how hard we try to hide…He’ll always find us.

Sometimes I have a hard time believing this passage. The fact that no matter how many times I run away, He’ll always come running after me is nearly impossible to understand.

He doesn’t just know us…He wants us.

You are wanted by God.

You Are Precious

Psalm 139: 13-18

¹³For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

¹⁴I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

¹⁵My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

¹⁶Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

¹⁷How precious to me are your thoughts, a God! How vast is the sum of them!

¹⁸Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—when I awake, I am still with you.

You are fearfully and wonderfully made by the hands of God.

Wanna know why that’s so hard to believe?

Because it such an absurd—almost laughable—thought that God would want anything to do with us. That He would dare touch our dirty hearts or breathe life into our fated bones.

But He did…and He does.

The wonderful thing about faith is that we aren’t supposed to understand it. We’re simply meant to live it.

The Great I Am planned the days of your life before you even opened your eyes. He knew your future before you even had a past.

You are precious to our King.

You Are Heard

Psalm 139: 19-24

¹⁹If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!

²⁰They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name.

²¹Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?

²²I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.

²³Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

²⁴See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.

We all have enemies. Sometimes it’s a person, other times it’s a situation or a mindset.

It doesn’t matter how big or small it is. Take it to God.

There have been times where I’ve felt silly praying about a certain problem or difficulty because I didn’t think it would be “important” to God. Besides, there are wars being fought, children with dying parents, babies that are starving, believers being persecuted and so many other brutal tragedies taking place in our world.

What is my little struggle compared to that?

Well, friend, that is the wrong question to be asking.

A more correct question would be the following: who are we to decide what God cares about?

He knows you, wants you, created you, values you…and you know what?

He hears you.

We don’t have to hide our problems from Him, because the truth is, He already knows them. And who better to take your struggles to than the One who loves you the most? The One who has already been to your future and holds all your days in His hands?

You Are…

Well, friend, I’ve done my part.

I know who I am—a flawed and broken teenage girl that will make mistakes and will fall down and will run away a thousand times or more. I already have.

But despite all of that, I am loved and known and created and valued and heard by God.

What is your answer?

Who are you?

Rue