The Real You

[HKHaugan]

Spiritual Identity, The Real You

“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put him together again (Mother Goose rhyme).” And, there is a country song that starts with that rhyme and adds “And when I gave to you my heart, you broke it and it fell apart. My heart went boom, that was my doom, I've got a humpty dumpty heart.”

Three immediate spiritual and logical insights come in here. First, mankind is fallen, broken. Second, each of us is fallen, broken. We are a 'humpty-dumpty ' people. Third, all the king's horses and all the king's men can't put us together again. It takes the King Himself.

What we are is an image of God (Gen.1:26). Who we are is a child of God (Jn.1:13) Why we are is being a witness for God (Acts 1:8). Image, child and witness describe something quite different than how we are defined in the world around us. It is necessary to start here because we are disciples of Jesus. Jesus is God, who was born, who lived, died and was resurrected, to recover and restore our true identity. We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. That's it in a nutshell.

But this is not how we are viewed by the secular world. Identity here is spliced, sliced and diced and divided into categories. We are seen from different perspectives.

From a scientific perspective we are a highly developed reproductive species in the animal kingdom. We are male and female. We have five senses that enable us to survive and function: sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. We live in families and communities. We are born, thrive for a period of time and then die.
Economically, we are producers and consumers, sellers and buyers, providing goods and services.
Politically, we are voters, constituents, citizens, members of a nation, community, independent and party members and only have life during pre-election times.
Educationally, we are teachers, students and lifetime learners until our mind ceases to function.
Socially, we are ethnic, upper, middle, lower class, racial, insiders, outsiders, law abiding, criminal, individuals, teens, middle age, seniors, retired, alumni, etc.
Professionally, we are our occupation.
Medically, we are patients with treatable and untreatable conditions
Psychologically, we are individual personalities with a broad range of emotionally charged behaviors, introvert, extrovert, passive, aggressive and so on.
Religiously, we are believers in various systems of ethics and morality, functioning as clergy and laity, varying degrees of membership denominationally, ranging from atheism to deism with all the in between factions.

Each of these perspectives are broken down into many subheads. They're how we're seen and dealt with day by day. Birth, life and death are defined by the function of the perspective. They are when you begin in them and end in them. If you are a professional you are born when you start a profession and your death is when you retire. The bottom line is all life in this world is temporary. Your life is defined by the function you perform. In this world function equals life. When the function (that temporary life) ends so do you.

Every world category has a beginning and an end. In other words every identity sourced in the world is temporary and ends (as any unemployed and retired person will tell you) unless you physically die while you are in the category. Think of actors, coaches, ball players, corporate executives and all the other brief functional occupations. They die when their function ceases. For many it's facelift time, find another job, a hobby, fill the moment with something or just grow old, alone and afraid.

I'm sure perspectives can be added but there is another designation that points to handling everything that is unseen and that is spirituality. Spirituality is not a temporary function. It is eternal, invisible and very real. This is where the world of unbelief takes a turn and heads in the other direction. This is where the people who know only the world get that 'deer-in-the-headlights' look when we talk spirituality.

Given everything we do is motivated 100% by what we can't see, that places all the above categories in spiritual reality. Spirituality has to do with the whole invisible dimension, with its unseen qualities and values, good and evil, choices and decisions, perception, judgment, love, emotions and what is most important---who and what we believe, trust and have faith in to be the best we can in the world's categories.

Every world category therefore, is undertaken spiritually because how we approach them, carry them out and relate to others in them demands belief, trust and faith. Belief that what you choose is right, trust in the persons and ideas with which you work and faith to act out your part in the work. Belief, trust and faith are spiritual so who do you trust to be your guide in this unseen spiritual dimension? The 'world' is more than physical bodies doing physical things in a physical material universe. It is the complex unseen relational, personal choice-making atmosphere in which fear, good and evil, right and wrong, accompany us in every next moment.

There is one constant that everyone, with no exception, wants, desires, needs in order to believe, trust and have faith to act, that is being right. This is the deepest conscious need we have. Some say love, acceptance, recognition. But they depend on being right in someone's eyes. It's how right we feel in our own eyes, our mind and heart. In our everyday experience there's always someone or a group of someones who set what it means to be right. You have to “learn the ropes.” In all those categories the world sets for us there is the common need to be right in them. Every category has its expectations based on what is right in them and depending on who does the judging. That is, to be right, to feel right and to do right. These are the three core motivations in every one of us having to do with being right. The greatest fears we have are the fears of not being right, of being judged negatively, of being rejected, of being the only one in a group that doesn't meet the expectations involved, that stands out as different and unacceptable.

Here is where the Lord Jesus makes the difference. Being right is being justified wherever and with whomever you are. Faith in Jesus is what makes us right, what justifies us in our choices and actions. Faith in Jesus is the beginning of being right, of being accepted and having a purpose. When He is the One believed, trusted and by faith acts them out, no matter what function you may be performing in this world, He will give you the truth about how to approach them, the way to make choices in them, and the energy to be His witness within them. This is what the Cross and Resurrection Jesus are all about. Faith in Him is our cross in every next moment and His Resurrection is Him in our life's every next moment. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus in the unseen dimension of every day life. He is how we bring Jesus' life into every temporary function and how we show the never ending life that a relationship with Jesus offers. Is it any wonder Paul built his entire career preaching justification by faith, being right in every next moment, by accepting Jesus as Lord of and in our every next moment?

In Jesus there are no more 'humpty-dumpty' lives that can't be put back together. Our true identity can be restored. The King is here personally guiding His people regardless of 'the world' and its fantasies and promises. He's here to restore real life to people lost in false life. Each of us are more than our world identities and the functions they give us. In Christ we not only have a restored identity, we have a purpose for every next moment. There's more than a gold watch, family pictures, dredged memories and anecdotes when our world functions cease. It's our belief, trust and faith in Jesus that is carried into eternity. He is our identity securer, our elder brother making us a child of the Father and bringing us into unity by the Holy Spirit. Now that's identity and that's life.