Seasons and Identities

We are not identified by our seasons of life.  This is something I feel like the Lord has been teaching me lately.  Let’s face it, we have all gone through some type of season.  Hopeless and heartache, pain and suffering, loss and set-backs, stress and frustrations.  Yet we often carry these circumstances around as if they belong to us. 

I’ve gone through my fair share of tough seasons.  I’ve walked through the seasons of hopelessness.  I’ve walked through the seasons of discouragement, despair, loneliness, hurt, rejection, and anger.  Yet, I am not defined by them.  I remember carrying these “feelings” around like it belonged to me.  Leaving my house, I would make a mental note: got my phone- check, kids-check, purse-check, emotional baggage-double check.  I became aware of what I was doing when I stumbled upon an old diary/journal I had kept during the time. My attitude sucked.  But was I mopey, and whiney.  I was drenched in self-pity.  I am not discrediting the pain I was actually in or the hurt I was experiencing.  No, because let’s face it.  Those feelings are real.  Why are so many on medication or committing suicide?  Because their feelings have gotten the better of them.  Depression is real.  So real that it’s not only natural but supernatural! 

But as I re-read my journal I wasn’t so much taken by the actual experience I was having but my attitude about it.  It was like something had caught my spirit’s attention.  I realized that if I was so struck by my attitude, how much more was God?  Don’t get me wrong, I know he is all loving, understanding and genuinely caring.  But I can tell you that it wasn’t my whining that moved him.  Only faith can do that. 

Hebrews says faith is the substance of things hoped for, yet the evidence of things not seen.  Also, without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). My feelings regarding my situation were way too big than my faith in who I was in Christ. 

If we are seated in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6) then why are we so concerned about earthly things?  I believe it’s because we get our eyes off of who we are and Whose we are and we put it on what we are going through. 

Shadows always come with light.  If you turn a light on, you will most likely find a shadow somewhere.  When we focus ourselves on the Light of the World, our shadow stays behind us.  When we turn and look at our shadow (i.e. what we are going through.  What we are feeling.  What’s been done to us) then we miss the light completely. 

our identity is in the light.  Be in the light as he is in the light (1 John 1:7).  If our identity is in Christ, he’s in light and is light, shouldn’t we be light as well?  Hint* the answer is YES.  We are to be salt and light.

Before we can be light, we need to throw off our rags of hurt, rejection, pain and suffering, anger, frustration, loneliness, bitterness, depression, and everything else that isn’t from Heaven.  Then we need to put on the cloak of righteousness.  We are the righteousness of God through Christ Jesus.  If we don’t understand that, then his death and resurrection was in vain.  If we don’t understand that our sins are forgiven and that the same power that raised Christ from the dead lives in us, then the cross was for nothing. 

If that resurrection power raised Jesus from the dead, then it most certainly can raise you out of your situation. 

Do not identity yourself with past seasons or current seasons of hurt or disappointment.  If we want to be steadfast when storms of life come, then our roots of who we are need to be deep in 1) the Father’s love and 2) the Word of God.