Who do you say I am?
If you’re reading this at the moment, I’m going to give you a heads up, by telling you that the information you obtain in these next few minutes will probably be the most important thing you will learn in your entire life. No cap! I am being one hundred percent real. This is something that has impacted me hugely, and it dramatically changed my life when I picked it up, even though I didn’t know about it at the time.
You’re probably asking, “Jarred, what could be so enormously awesome that it would change the shape and direction of my existence here on this tiny planet called earth?!” If you’ll bear with me a few moments to tell you how I became who I am today, and how I’m still being transformed into who God calls me to be, you will walk away with a wealth of knowledge that will shift the entire playing field of life.
It all started on the 6th of August, 1999, when a young Coloured kid was born into a family with parents who grew up in Coronation-Ville and Westbury (two insanely dangerous areas to live in). Where I took a curve was growing up in a predominantly White neighbourhood – already I looked and felt different! My Primary School had me sitting next to all these White kids, and I quickly found myself trying to talk like them so I could fit in and discover a sense of belonging. To be honest, Grade 1-7 had me feeling like the black sheep (no pun intended, lol). Even with my tweaked accent, you wouldn’t find me chilling with the popular kids. It’s like I couldn’t find anyone who looked like me….
What could get worse than that? I’ll tell you exactly what – high school! Just when I had begun to somewhat fit in with the white kids, I moved on to grade eight, and to my bewilderment, everyone was Black.... boy was those years confusing! Here comes this Coloured kid, who doesn’t seem to know that he’s Coloured because he speaks like a White boy, and you can probably imagine the teasing and verbal bullying that followed! Nobody was there to prepare me for high school, and before you knew it, I started getting these weird things called hormones.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I never really felt like I belonged, and because of all the adaption to my social environment that I did growing up, I never really knew who I was. This led me to have toxic friends that brought my social confidence to a low and bad relationship that made me insecure. I was searching for a sense of identity and purpose. It was probably around this time that I started drawing closer to God. In grade 10, a girl I liked invited me to her youth, and I had begun to hear about a God who loves me just the way I am. I also started attending my school’s church group (again, tbh, I didn’t have anyone to hang with), and because we knew the bible told us not to judge, I found myself in an environment where people didn’t laugh at me for being different. As I started learning about who God was and what he did for me, I started learning about who I truly was! I found confidence and joy, and my insecurities were slowly but surely passing away!
The bible says we were made in God’s image (Gen 1:26, 27), meaning who and what we are, is a reflection of who and what God is. You can study a reflection all you want – its shape, size and colours – but you will never truly understand what the reflection is unless you realise that is reflecting something, and what exactly it is a reflection of. Who and what we are will never be known unless we understand who and what God is! The first step on a journey of self-realisation, and self-understanding, is God’s realisation and understanding. In simple terms, I realised who I was and what I am because I came to understand who’s image I reflected and who he is!
One of the main themes of the gospel is that when Adam and Eve sinned, the image of God shattered. Our broken humanity reflects God poorly, in everything we do and in every area of our lives. A reflection cannot fix itself, and we too can’t fix ourselves. How do we get ourselves out of this mess? How do we fix the cracks in our reflections?
The answer lies in Jesus. Colossians 1:15 says, “He [Jesus] is the image [reflection] of the invisible God…” Jesus, in his perfect humanity, perfectly reflected God and who God is. You see, the message of the gospel is that Jesus exchanged his perfect reflection for our brokenness and “shattered-ness”, and died with all our sins and dysfunctions. When he rose to life on the third day, he left all our broken stuff in the grave and gave us his wholeness and righteousness, so that when we confess Him as Lord and believe in him and his work at the cross, his wholeness and righteousness is given to us.
I’m beginning to see that the reason I couldn’t find a sense of self-worth back in school, was because I was trying to be like the other shattered reflections around me. Our true identity lies in who Jesus is – his perfect reflection and wholeness. In Matthew 16:15, Jesus asks his disciples, “But who do you say I am…” Peter replies that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Notice clearly what Jesus says afterwards – “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church…” Pastor Steven Furtick says that once Peter knew Jesus’ identity, Jesus revealed Peter’s identity – and I strongly feel that once we embark on a journey of discovering who Jesus is, we will only then discover who we are.
And this is what I’m going to leave with you. I found identity and belonging, who and what I am when I found that I am a reflection of who and what God is. Although I might have been a shattered image, Jesus, in His perfection, fixed me up by taking my brokenness. Don’t try and find identity by your situations, or who may be around you at this moment and in the time to come. Insecurities and low self-esteem arise when we try and be people that we are not. Instead, pursue Jesus who and what he is, and what he has done for you. When you do so, you’ll slowly but surely begin to see who and what you are, as well as where you belong and where you’ll be. After all, we pursue him because he has already pursued us….
blessings,
Jarred Christian Beiling