The wavering in my faith was the biggest struggle that I have dealt in my life. This hidden struggle was a lonely road and I chose to take it alone. Though God knew all that was going on in my heart, I held even Him at a distance. I didn’t invite Him in to my struggle as David does in Psalm 139:23-24. He said “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” David welcomes God’s searching of his heart. I, however, didn’t want to admit it to myself. How could I admit it to others? It was all wrapped up in my selfishness. I didn’t feel secure so I attempted to hold onto the only things that I felt I could control. As far as I could tell, I could control my actions and therefore control that what others thought of me would not change. I held onto the image of identity that I had always known. I kept living like nothing was different, like nothing was wrong.
This action was for myself and for others. I didn’t want to change who I was. I had felt comfortable in the place that I was known to fit. However, the struggle within me and my fears about what others would think, threatened that even this place of “security” could be taken away if people knew I wavered.
I could not make my faith unwavering and so my identity began to shift. I began to build new personas to strengthen who I thought I was. When I had my first child this shift came most naturally. My identity became wrapped up in being a mom. I felt like I was a doing a good job and felt valued. Others would tell me I was a good mom and the joy that I could see in my son’s face reassured me of this statement.
As he grew my security in this position of good mom started to waiver too. I could see how my frustration and selfishness would come out as he didn’t obey. I could see how I still held onto my selfishness instead of selfless love that I expected a “good mother” would have.
I couldn’t live up to any of the places I tried to find my value. As a Christian I couldn’t even believe. As a mom, I was realizing how selfish I was. My search for value kept turning me back to my faith and the longing for my childlike faith only grew.
I had idealized the memory of what my faith once was. I was not looking to grow in knowledge of my Savior, but instead just bury my talents and have everything be the same as it once was when the master returned (Matthew 25:14-30). I wanted to see the happy memory of strong faith that had grown out of knowing that God provided for me. I wanted to remember the security of living under God’s provision and acceptance. However, I was afraid to learn more or look more closely at the Bible for fear that what was left of my faith would be washed away. To me, that idolized version of my childlike faith meant knowing I was safe. I wanted that security again.
I tried to understand. I tried to fit heavenly concepts into my earthly puzzle. In my own striving, I couldn’t fit in all the pieces. I felt as if my innocence was taken. I felt like the seed among the thorns mentioned in Matthew 13:7. What I thought I knew and trusted began to be squeezed. I could feel the constricting of the enemy as my small seedling of faith was trying to be choked out. Looking back now, I can see those years in college and struggling afterwards were a battle for my heart.
I focused on myself to uphold my faith but somehow, I couldn’t see the burden I was carrying. I wanted to let go of the doubts that crowded my mind but I wasn’t looking how Jesus is trustworthy. I wasn’t looking at what He had done for me. I was looking at myself.
When I stopped looking only at my Savior the identity struggle only intensified. It came full force when I began to listen to this world and try to fit into its expectations instead of God’s expectations.
This change of focus is where striving and trying to perform all the right things took its deepest hold in my heart. I continued to do all those things that I knew were right. I continued to go to church. I continued to pray. In fact, I remember praying that God would make something out of these years. I prayed that He would use something out of the hurt. I remember praying for my son that he would become a Christian and believe in Jesus coupled with the prayer that it would become real in my heart again. I did all these things not out of love for my Savior but because in my skewed view of God’s character that’s how I attempted to draw near to Him.
I became like the Galatians and began to fall away from grace (Galatians 5:4). I couldn’t make myself believe so I attempted to do everything within my control to make up for my failure. I tried to earn acceptance and a standing with God. I was living like a Pharisee. I wanted to know all the rules so that I could do them and please God. As I now remember standing in that place, I look back with tears. I can see the hurt and pain. I can remember striving with all my strength to do the right thing and stay on the right path. I was drowning in all I had to do.
I’m not sure why I kept hoping for faith to return but I’m sure that it didn’t really have to do with me. Though I could not see it at the time, God was working something in me. All along God has been teaching me and drawing me to Himself. Sometime after college I took a course called, “Why we believe the Bible.” I remember at that point just asking God to give me peace and help me to embrace that I don’t have to have all the answers. This brought some healing to the hurt set off by my college course. I began to let go of the questions that I had got caught up on about who chose the canon and why those books versus other books were chosen. I began to see that God was in control of it all. He is the I AM. He existed before all things and is in control of every outcome. I need to be reminded that God is bigger than all those things. How could the God of creation have the power to set the stars in place and craft man in His image but not be able to make sure that man would have His word as he desired it. He can do it!
Soon after, I found myself in a Bible study covering the Psalms of Ascent. The words began to come alive to me. They spoke the promises of God to my heart.
I would love for you to read the Psalms of Ascent found in Psalms 120-135. So many passages sang to me of God’s provision in my life. So many passages remind me of God’s involvement in my life.
I couldn’t pick only one to include. But would like to take you through four of these Psalms.
“I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
4 Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
6 The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
8 The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and forevermore.”
This passage became a reminder of my value to the Lord. He knew my path and He found value in me. Though I didn’t have the faith to carry myself, He kept me. He protected my life and kept me from evil. Even in my faithlessness, God was faithful.
I was in a place where I needed help. Here, I was told that the very help I needed was from the LORD, who does not sleep. He does not take breaks from caring for me, but instead is watching over my very life. The Lord, Yahweh is my protector. I AM is my keeper. He would not let me be struck down by the sun nor squeezed out by the enemy.
I continued to learn this in Psalms 124.
“If it had not been the Lord who was on our side—
let Israel now say—
2 if it had not been the Lord who was on our side
when people rose up against us,
3 then they would have swallowed us up alive,
when their anger was kindled against us;
4 then the flood would have swept us away,
the torrent would have gone over us;
5 then over us would have gone
the raging waters.
6 Blessed be the Lord,
who has not given us
as prey to their teeth!
7 We have escaped like a bird
from the snare of the fowlers;
the snare is broken,
and we have escaped!
8 Our help is in the name of the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.”
God, Yahweh (translated here as LORD), the one who exists before all things was on my side. “If it had not been the LORD,” the one who holds all things together, that “was on my side” (Psalm 124:1) the enemy “would have swallowed [me] up alive” or swept me away in the flood. For no reason of myself, nor my character, not even my belief was God on my side. It was only out of His mercy and His grace that He chose me. The LORD chose to keep me. Yahweh is my Keeper. The one who made heaven and earth found value in me.
He has carried me from the snare of the enemy. He watches over me. He has not been sleeping. He knows. He will keep me from evil and protect my life. He has not left me to strive and figure it out but He is leading me along the way for He is my keeper.
You see, my struggle all those years was one of security. At the depth of my questioning, I wanted to know that my salvation was secure. I was trying to make sure I was doing enough to confirm this. However, I was not doing enough. I could never do enough. Even if I could make my faith unwavering it wasn’t because I had done enough, but because the LORD was on my side. This brings me to Psalm 127:1-2.
“Unless the Lord builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.
2 It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep.”
When we do it without the Lord, we do it in vain. I had tried to rebuild what I felt like was broken on my own, only to watch it fall over and over. I tried to hold it all together myself and hide my struggle behind a life that seemed to be walking the right path. However, I was failing.
I believe back when I was a child, I was a Christian. However, somewhere along the way I began to lose sight of my Savior. I had fallen away from grace (Galatians 5:4) and began to try and gain security by my own actions. I had to remember to look to the “LORD our God” (Psalms 123:2).
“To you I lift up my eyes,
O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
2 Behold, as the eyes of servants
look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maidservant
to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God,
till he has mercy upon us.
3 Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us,
for we have had more than enough of contempt.
4 Our soul has had more than enough
of the scorn of those who are at ease,
of the contempt of the proud.”
Though I had called myself a Christian for many years, I needed to refocus my eyes on Yahweh. I needed to see His vastness. I needed to see His character. I needed to see His holiness. I needed to trust Him and not myself. It was at that point in my adult years where I started to understand more clearly the real need for forgiveness. In seeing that God is a God of justice and love, it helped me to see why He sent Jesus to redeem His children, to fill the gap that we could not cross without His love and sacrifice. I started to realize that I was not secure by my actions, but by the actions of my loving LORD, by committing Himself, “his own arm” (Isaiah 59:16), His son to take action where I could not.
I had felt as if as I stood on the mountain of life and my foot was ready to slip. I constantly looked at those rocks and pulled my foot back over and over. But I was not secure because I was not looking to my Help, my Keeper. When my trust is in Him, He won’t let my foot slip. I am His. I am secure.
“I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.”
FOR YOUR JOURNAL:
Are you trusting in yourself or looking to God to be your help, your keeper?
Again, I am reminded of Exodus 3. What if we could look at ourselves like God told Moses to look at himself? In His answer “but I will be with you,” (Exodus 3:12a), He is telling us not to look at our situation and be limited by it. Instead, we are to look at Him for our value. As we learn who we are, this is the goal: to keep our eyes focused on our Father for He is the one that is with us. He is the One who has made you secure.
In my story, God claimed me as His child all those years ago, but through ups and downs, periods of strong faith, and years of struggle with doubt, The Lord has kept me! I didn’t need to achieve anything for this acceptance. The Lord is my Keeper. Because He is my Keeper, I am Secure.
I am secure.
EMBRACING GOD GIVEN IDENTITY
- Can you claim this for yourself? I, _______________, am secure.
- What does it mean to be secure?
Take away:
If you are a child of God, there is security in your salvation. You don’t have to do all the right things or look a certain way. We gain this title by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 16:31). Our security comes from the LORD, Yahweh, the One who created all things and the One who keeps us. We are secure not because of our actions but because of His actions toward us. This brings value to our lives because our help is from the LORD; The I AM is on our side. He has taken action where we could not. He can keep you even when you can’t see the path.
When searching for significance and identity, our confidence is in God. We don’t need the world to tell of our importance. We can rest our value and security in our Keeper, the LORD, who is “on our side” (Psalms 124:1). “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31)
- If you believe this is true how should this affect your life?
- What action should be spurred by this truth?
- How does this aspect of who we are play out in a role/position that God has given you?
Application:
If we are secure because of God’s actions toward us and we place our trust in Him, then our failures cannot condemn us. We can lay our failures at the cross and invite the God who knows to forgive us (I John 1:9). We can rest our very lives in the hands of the one “who made heaven and earth.”
Psalm 121:2-3
“My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
We don’t have to hold it all together but trust the One who “will not let your foot be moved.” (Psalm 121:3) We don’t have to worry about whether or not we have been good enough because We have not. We cannot. We are secure because of what Jesus has done for us.
Prayer:
Thank you Lord that you are on our side and by our side, leading and making paths straight. Thank you that you have a plan for each of us and you are able to keep us.
“The Lord is my Keeper.” Psalm 121:5
Father, may we learn who You are! May we see that our value is not found in our standing or position in this life but in You! May we see that our true value comes from you. We can be your children because You are a welcoming Father. We can have faith and believe because You are faithful and the author of our faith. We can be saved because You are our Savior. We are secure because You are our Keeper and are on our side. Thank You that You have taken action even when we cannot. Thank You that we can be secure. In Jesus name that I pray. Amen.
I hope that you will continue on this journey with me to explore identity. To receive updates please subscribe to Steps to Trusting. As a welcome for subscribing you will receive the a printable file that includes much of the encouragement that I found in God’s word regarding identity. When I was searching to see who I was, I found healing and an identity of value and purpose in God’s promises. I hope that they will be a blessing to you too.
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