Bringing Heaven Home

12 Identity (1)

Today, we will be starting a new chapter on Bringing heaven Home, under ‘The World Needs a Father’, on a father confers identity. There are three parts to identity. First, who am I. Second, primary and second identity. And third, on the family values and table of support.

So who am I and who is the true me? Identity is an issue for our children today. Every country, every culture, and every individual must deal with this identity question: Who am I? The identity question is a profound one that will pop up throughout a child’s lifetime. They will have to have a fair understanding of their identity, gathered in the home phase before they enter the teenage years, so that they will not be swallowed by a group identity in the group-adventure phase. They will have to discover their social identity in the teenage years as they interact with their peers. This will determine much of how they will function as spouses later in marriage. They will again re-calibrate their identity in the moving out and up phase. The culture of the environment shapes a lot of people’s identity as well. All professions carry a unique sub-culture within the bigger culture. Then, when the half time phase (43-48 years old) dawns, there will again be an identity crisis.

Therefore, we need to first introduce the importance of having a father to establish moral authority, father to confer identity. Our children need to understand the purpose in life, what on earth we are here for? Our identity in Christ is first a Child of God.

We are living in the world of massive identity confusion. For example, if you are a Christian, we are in this world but not of this world. Therefore, we need to understand our defined identity so as not to get confused.

First, we have a legitimizing identity (I call this cultural identity). This is generated by civil society by those in authority. Secondly, we have a resistance identity (I call this counter-culture identity). This is generated by those actors who are devalued and stigmatized by the logic of domination. Then we have project identity (I call this trendsetter’s identity). This is built when social actors, building a new identity that redefines their position in society and by doing so, seek transformation of the overall social structure.

Our children had to discover who they are and who they wanted to be very early in life. They had to discover the counter-culture of the Kingdom in a very contaminated society. They had to learn that they were born in a very contaminated society. They had to learn that they were born ‘not of this world (John 17:14), that they did not think according to the ‘pattern of this world’ (Roman 12:2), that their true citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20) and that they have a very specific task to influence and change this world as ‘salt and light’ would do (Matthew 5:13-14).

God created us to be His children, “We do not think like other people; we do not speak like other people, and we do not do like other people, because we are unique and extraordinary, because we are born from above.” We bring heaven to earth.

Even in the church, which was supposed to be a counter-culture, they had to decide to become trendsetter within this counter-culture. If we were to ask people in our churches what the top five things Jesus valued were, we should get answers like love, humility, servanthood, forgiveness, and compassion. But if we were to ask them what they value, we would probably get answers like happiness, success, good food or fast internet.

If the two don’t match up, we have an identity crisis. Chances are that church members reflect the culture around the world, instead of the new culture that Jesus taught. We need to be counter-culturists. We have to teach our children from the time that they are in their baby shoes that we live in a counter-culture. We are trendsetters. We swim upstream. That makes us leaders. This is who we are. We either are made or we make. We are makers. We are made from above and our identity is to be makers.

The child must understand his identity who he is and who he is not. The second thing that brings a lot of identity confusion is what I called the Segregated Self. The Segregated Self is the following: The person has a ‘True Me’ and that’s what God has created you to be. Second thing is the person has ‘Actual Me’. What I love every day of my life and that is seen by other people. Then is ‘Presented Me’, sometimes my ‘Actual Me’ is different from my ‘Presented Me’ because I need to adapt to expectations or perceived expectations of us; the me who presents the image we want to portray. Finally, we have the ‘Perceived Me’, is how people see us or even stereotype us; it represents people’s point of view of us. Sometimes, we are confused by the different me that we need to present ourselves to the world.

How do we overcome this, we have to teach our children that we really need to be real. That my private self and public self would be the same thing. So we as parents have to be the same person at work, at home, at church, wherever we are.

The best way to become the real person is the following: That you will have people around you to be totally transparent.

Total transparency is by unmasking and people around you to see your blind spots. Therefore, it’s often good to tell your spouse or your children what you see in me that I don’t see of myself, what is wrong with me? I can promise you, they know. So that they can extract those blind spot that you cannot see. Be thankful that you have a safe space at home that you can reflect, acknowledge and work on those blind-spots.

The other way to do it is to unmask and to tell your confidante to share something that you don’t find it easy to tell anyone. Just take off the mask, tell him or her your struggles, your fears. It is the best thing to tell your children your fear, why? Because they don’t want to see a perfect father, they want to see how to grow up and you will be the role model to show your children the process of your growing up to your children.

Some of the best moments that I have is that I reveal my stresses, my fears, my struggles. And the big surprise that I received from my children is that they asked can we walk with you and pray for you? I need a companion, belonging is the deepest need of any human being.

We need to help our children out of our confusing life. When we go to help them the most important thing in being real is to be the real me to be as close as what God has intended you to be.

Therefore, I have come across so many people who has never believed that God expected something great out of them. Your children need to know this and to believe what God has intended them to be. To believe and know that we are precious children of God, to live to our fullest potential that God has given to you and me.