Stop Hating and Start Loving Who You Are13 minute read
Having many unpleasant events can beat you down and leave you feeling hopeless. When life seems to hate you, it’s easy to hate it back. But is this the end of your story? It doesn’t have to be. God has more planned for your life than you know. Developing trust in Him is more important than knowing the details of your future.
When you don’t experience others understanding who you are, it’s easy to believe you are inadequate, unwanted, or worthless. The rejection can be real. You can experience a rejecting event but that doesn’t determine your value.
Some people don’t like who they are, so they conclude they have an identity problem. Then they set a goal to reinvent themselves.
If only I were someone else, then I’d be happy and content.
If you don’t like yourself, you don’t have an identity problem; you have a self-image problem. Your self-image is your best understanding of your God-given identity. Who you are, your identity is your solution, but you can be blind to your true identity. When you see exactly who God made you to be, you won’t want to be anyone else.
The Introvert’s Struggle with Self-Acceptance
People with a preference for introversion are called introverts. Every person is more complicated than a particular label, but the labels help bring awareness to the differences in personality.
God Made You on Purpose
Your identity can’t ever be taken away from you. You can temporarily lose sight of it, but it’s yours forever. This means God intentionally made you to have the amount of introversion that you do. Your introversion has associated strengths that others benefit from. For example, any of the following could be one of your strengths: concentration, focus, depth, intensity, self-reflection.
Introverts can be easily misunderstood. The primary reason for this is that introverts aren’t motivated to speak up and defend how they are different. Introverts can be excellent communicators, but they can’t compete as well in an “instant on” environment. By “instant on” I mean always having an answer on the tip of their tongues.
Invest in Understanding God’s Purpose
If you are an introvert, I encourage you to explore all that God made you to be. You don’t have to put artificial limitations on your behaviors. But accepting yourself as God made you to be is an important milestone. You probably won’t be able to accomplish this during your teen years. Even if you are confident, you don’t fully know who you are. Actually, you’ll probably need at least until your thirties to let go of who you and others think you’re supposed to be.
We all Struggle with Something
I’m an introvert. I’ve spent hours learning about who God made me to be. Reading books, journaling, and receiving counseling have all helped me. I’m in my forties (actually getting close to fifty) and I continue to learn every day where I’m capable and where I’m limited.
Allow me to share an example of how I’m aware of my limitations. I struggle with public speaking. Sometimes I wish it came easy for me, but it doesn’t. Just because I don’t like it, doesn’t mean I can’t hone my skills, but I must accept that I probably won’t be a world-class speaker. I’d be happy with average. Public speaking drains me more than most other activities.
I know one thing for sure: I can’t pretend to be my favorite accomplished speaker. If I’m going to speak, I have to find my own way of doing it.
David Accepted His Natural Gifts and Limitations
When God called David to be king, He prepared David for service. God was with him when David protected his sheep from lions and bears.
Later, when David found himself on the battle lines, he heard the enemy Goliath’s boasting. David responded with faith from God’s Spirit and planned to challenge Goliath.
King Saul offered David his royal armor, but it was too bulky for David’s natural fighting style. David realized he didn’t need Saul’s armor to defeat Goliath. Instead, he trusted the life experience God had provided for him. He approached Goliath knowing God was with him, but free of all else that would have gotten him killed.
You can’t discount who you are and at the same time become a better version of yourself.
David defeated Goliath that day by being David. He didn’t have to worry about his lack of height or strength as compared to Goliath. God gave David success because God wanted Goliath defeated.
Having a Weakness Doesn’t Mean You Are Defective
Weaknesses are tied to strengths. If you are tall, you can reach up high easily, but you don’t fit in small spaces very well. If you are compassionate, you can show mercy easily, but you might struggle to speak the truth directly. If you are introverted, you might have easier access to more profound ideas, but you might struggle to greet people and help them feel comfortable at a large public event. To experience the full blessing of your strengths, you must also accept and make peace with your corresponding weaknesses.
Weaknesses are different than lies. You can eliminate the untrue parts of you, but you can’t remove weaknesses. A weakness is true about you such as, “I’m short.” A lie such as “I’m worthless” is never true, even when it feels true.
When you lack a sense of your identity, you might rely on inferior coping methods that cover up weaknesses. You might avoid a situation where you could fail. A short person might crack jokes about extremely short or tall people instead of trying out for basketball. You might over-focus on a particular strength so much it becomes a weakness. An introvert might stay home to avoid socializing, which only reduces the chances to become more skilled at it.
Coping methods are inferior when they encourage a place holder — a false self — instead of developing a stronger identity. Who is the real me? is a better question than, Who do I want to be? You can’t be anyone you want to be, but you can be more of who God designed you to be.
David Made God His Primary Audience
When God wanted the ark back in Jerusalem, David had a problem. Uzzah had just disobeyed God by touching the ark. Because God judged Uzzah and he died, David was afraid he might make a similar mistake and die also. So, he left the ark to stay with Obed-edom.
About three months later, when David realized God was blessing Obed-edom and wasn’t killing anyone else, he went to the ark to bring it back to Jerusalem. After David was able to move the ark only a short distance, he celebrated. David danced before the Lord with all his might (2 Samuel 6:14 ESV).
David’s wife, Michal, told David his dancing was undignified and inappropriate in front of other women. David didn’t admit to any error and God didn’t judge him, but God did judge Michal.
We can gain different lessons from this story, one for each character:
- Uzzah: don’t disobey any of God’s direct orders
- Obed-edom: God’s presence is a blessing
- Michal: don’t strike out against God’s chosen leader with selfish motives (jealousy)
- David: focus on God and express all of who you are without holding back
David didn’t feel ashamed of his behavior. He refused to accept Michal’s manipulative words. Are you aware of any part of yourself that you try to keep hidden from others? Have you ever considered that God is waiting for you to open the gift of your identity He has given to you?
Love Who God Made You to Be
I know when I’m feeling my brokenness, information is useful, but it doesn’t seem to apply to me. I think, yeah, that sounds true, but how will it ever be true in my life?
If that’s you right now, I can’t promise instant results, but I can recommend steps you can take to pursue who God made you to be.
For reasons God only knows for sure, God made each of us to start as babies and mature over time. Some growth takes a lot of time. The good news is that you don’t have to figure it out all at once. God’s plan for your life works no matter how old you are.
You can start from wherever you are in your understanding of your identity and become more confident. Here are four steps to keep you moving along in your adventure to know your God-given identity.
Step 1: Become Enlightened About God’s Design
The first step to loving yourself is to study God’s design. You’re doing this now by reading this article.
During this step, you gather information about God and His design and plan for humans. For example, you need to understand God created you with intention and that you aren’t alive only because of random chance.
Step 2: Explore Who You Are
During this step, you become intentional about learning your specific identity. A metal detector is set to find metal. If you use it (and it’s calibrated correctly) it beeps around metal but won’t beep when you find sand or paper.
You need an identity detector. Without one, you can wander for months or even years trying to find who you are. Exploring who you are should include self-assessment, but also other’s feedback. Ultimately, you need to hear from God who you are, but He does speak through others.
One way to detect your identity is to take several personality inventories. If you know you are an introvert, you are already at least partially familiar with one. Do you prefer introversion or extraversion? No person is 100% introverted (she would never speak to anyone) and no person is 100% extraverted (he would never stop talking).
Another option is reviewing your life experiences to unlearn false interpretations. Then you can allow God to teach you your true identity. For example, if you grew up with your dad telling you “you’ll never amount to anything” because you can’t play sports like your dad, you’ll need to unlearn believing you are worthless and recognize your other abilities.
A third option is taking a spiritual gift inventory and experimenting with which one(s) God seems to have given you.
Something you can do now: make a list of your strengths and weaknesses associated with a particular trait such as introversion.
Step 3: Embrace Who You Are
Up until now, you might only have discovered who you think you are. Are you happy with the results? The goal in step three is to accept what you uncover. At this point, you stop questioning God about what He made. You start trusting God that He got something right when He made you.
If you reach this step and continue to have feelings of dislike or self-hatred, I guarantee you’re suffering from some type of identity lie. You’ll want to invest the time to root out the lie so you can live in greater freedom. Put on who you are and put off who you aren’t (see Ephesians 4:24–25).
Lies are sown into your life through (negative) experiences and they will take some kind of (positive) experience to override them. The following exercise might help you understand what is missing in your life.
Take a moment and think about a particular situation in which you feel inadequate or inferior. Can you picture it? You got how it feels? Now answer me this, who is your audience? Who are you performing for?
If you can’t picture God with you, clapping and cheering you on, you’re missing out. If not God, who is in your audience and why do you suppose they are so important to you?
Something you can do now: make two lists of your beliefs about yourself — one list of actual truths and another list of what feels true but are actually false.
Step 4: Express Who You Are
After you learn and accept who you are, all the remains is to share yourself with the world. God intends that you become aware of who you are for the benefit of others. Use all that God has given you to make a difference in the world.
In Matthew 5, Jesus teaches about two aspects of identity: One, you’re like salt, an invaluable mineral that has multiple, unique purposes. Two, you’re like light, meant to illuminate God and His truth to others.
You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its savor, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. Instead, they set it on a lampstand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven (Matthew 5:13–16 ESV).
A salt identity is potent, powerful, valuable, and useful. A salt-without-savor identity would be bland, dull, worthless, and useless. Jesus says you’re savory!
A bright identity is helpful, beautiful, and worshipful. It illuminates, is meant to be on display, and glorifies God. A shamefully hidden identity serves no purpose. Jesus says you’re bright!
Something you can do now: Pick a strength or a true belief about yourself that you’ve been reluctant to express. Release yourself from the obligation to be someone you’re not and practice a new behavior you’ve been holding back from trying.
Conclusion
When you focus on Jesus as your audience, you are able to let your fears and doubts fade into the background. When God is with you, nothing else matters. Success and failure don’t matter, at least not in their technical meanings, because as you experience God’s presence, you experience Truth, and that is the greatest success you can have in life. Give yourself to Jesus, and you can’t fail. Jesus won’t let those who put their faith in Him fail. He will show you how to walk as you put your trust in Him (see Psalm 143:8).
God has more planned for your life than you know. Are you ready to enter deeper into understanding God’s plans? God’s purpose for you flows out of your identity.
Matt writes a weekly blog about identity. If you’d like to continue your identity adventure with him, sign up at ChristianConcepts.com. As a bonus, you’ll receive Matt’s Identity Manifesto.
If you enjoyed this, you will also enjoy “What is the Perfect Christian”
Matt Pavlik
Matt Pavlik writes about identity and emotional healing at his blog, ChristianConcepts.com. As a child of God, Matt desires to see God’s truth become real in his life and in the lives of others. His books, "To Identity and Beyond", "Confident Identity", and "Marriage from Roots to Fruits", contain practical exercises to help readers move God’s truth from head to heart, developing the resilience needed to overcome life’s challenges. He administers God’s grace to individuals and couples as a professional counselor at his private practice, New Reflections Counseling.