“For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?
   But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.” Rom. 8:24-25

I grew up as one of five children, the only girl in the middle of four boys. As middle children can attest, you spend time waiting to be heard in the din of the crowd. It was not uncommon for me to go off and do things on my own because I got tired of waiting. My mother always said I was too impatient. In fact, my history will attest that I have been impatient throughout my life, and it has not served me or those I care about. I am not singular in that, it is a characteristic of this modern world we live in.

Things move very quickly now, and if it doesn’t go off seamlessly, people can come unglued. We see it manifested in things like road rage or outbursts in the workplace. There are other ways people choose to cope with life’s roadblocks and hurdles, and my way was to try to move things myself. I was kind of like the ant of the old song “Once there was a silly old ant. Thought he could move a rubber tree plant…”. The Lord suffered long to deliver me from myself, so I wouldn’t have to keep trying to do the impossible. The world today would tell you only someone of weak character would give up on the impossible, we see examples of it every day. However, the Lord would prefer we not resist him and let him take charge of our lives. Anyone who does let him take charge does themselves the greatest of favors.

The world might even have lauded my determination if it had produced any success, like a breakthrough in technology, or medicine or science. Movers and shakers in the world are heroes because they get difficult tasks done and even produce innovations thought to improve the quality of life.

Sadly, truth be known, movers and shakers often do more harm than good when they are acting alone or conspiratorially. Movers and shakers cannot move the immovable, just as hybrid bacteria is making useless some of the last centuries of antibiotics will attest. This is but a sign when we people are trying to engineer relationships to suit our design and purpose of what we have wrongfully thought is good and proper.

Thankfully, God intervened many times and stopped me. Yet there were times he allowed me to exercise my will to find out how wrong and corrupt my ways were. I lived in a state of impatience and was restless most of my life. I was constantly looking for the better way, the right way, some security of feeling loved and in a place of rest. My spirit was at odds with my flesh for a very big reason. God was calling me to be His servant while the World was beckoning me to fulfill my lusts, so that I would become slave to both lust and the World. The word of God puts it this way: “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” 1John 2:16 This conflict raged throughout most of my life and it has been an epic battle to break free of the World’s grip, and my biggest mistake was in thinking I had to do it myself. Only Jesus Christ can break these bonds for us in truth, and we must get out of the way and let him do his work. I’ll explain.

My identity as a child, was always as the girl of the family while growing up. That was it, it was my identity in the family, as the singular girl. It did give me my own bedroom, but I would have preferred to share one as my brothers did. I begged my parents for a sister, but that generally brought a laugh from them, they already had five kids. I was constantly sneaking into my parents’ bed because, often, I had nightmares and did not like to sleep in a room alone.

As I got older, I resigned myself to be a non-joiner in school. I resented the clicks and the way they treated outsiders, of whom I was one much of the time. I spent my first year as an outsider in Junior High because I dressed nerdy and was overweight. I lost weight that summer and began to dress better and began to get some acceptance. But then I saw the popular people turn on friends in a very judgmental way, which really discouraged me. One of my best friends was in trouble and people made her the butt of their crude jokes, so I quit speaking to them in High School for a year. They acted like they didn’t know why, but I was pretty sure they did. After that and some other rejections, I sought friends outside of my town, because my classmates were so narrow-minded. It served to keep me disconnected from most of the local groups and gatherings and I was just fine with that, so I was never popular through High School. I had friends, but most were not in with the cool kids. The majority of my classmates didn’t really know me very well. I had perhaps three intimate friends through school. Basically, my identity was a nobody or the sister of my older brother in our home town.

When I moved away from home to go to college, I moved in with my boyfriend. I had been introduced the summer before that while visiting my father. I knew very few people in town, so my identity was through him except at school. I did find a small circle of nerdy friends at college, the outcasts of a branch campus of my University. I was at home among the nerds there, but not for my academic achievements. I had to work all through my college years just to be able to live and eat, so I was in survival mode at that time, hoping for some kind of normalcy someday and to maybe fit in somewhere, and be part of something.

I tried to join the SDS, (The Students for Democratic Society) in college, hoping to find a place in their political movement. But after one protest venture to Washington D.C. with them, I discovered they were a group of hypocrites and I withdrew from their organization. About this time, I discovered college was mostly unfulfilling for me and I took a break from it. I went to work full time and rather enjoyed it. I had also gotten married and thought I would focus on building my family. My identity was all about being a wife and eventually a mother, except a short time later, something happened.

While these changes were taking place in my life and in my struggle for an identity, a very dramatic conversion was taking place in my mother first and then my second oldest brother. They had both accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior and been baptized by the Holy Ghost. I had witnessed a real conversion in them both, and I realized that was lacking in me. A few of my close friends had also become born-again at that time out of the Charismatic outpouring of the Holy Ghost. Many people were converted and drawn out of institutional churches for Charismatic or Spirit-filled churches in great numbers at this powerful outpouring prophesied by the prophet Joel. “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.” Joel 2: 28-29.  On seeing all these miracles take place, I couldn’t resist the draw of the Spirit of God and I too accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior.

In my first year, there was great excitement in reading God’s Word, and having it opened up to me so that I could understand it. I attended a number of conventions and gatherings looking for a fellowship where I could fit in with people of like faith, where I was living. My search was hampered in part by a lack of regard for true doctrine by the churches I investigated. So, despite my efforts to find solid fellowship I was disappointed by what I had found. I could not find a church that had the concern about the spiritual health of its members, and I had many red flags about the teachings or lack thereof in these places. As is a pitfall in Pentecostal churches, the party spirit of solely focusing on the gifts and not sound teaching, left me wanting in spiritual maturity. Churches were obsessed with growing their church numbers while not giving attention to seeing their congregation grow spiritually.

 Again and again, I found their interest was in adding numbers into their pews and not insisting on the full Gospel, including prophecy. I had to content myself with some small Bible study groups and visits with my mom and step-dad to get any sound teaching that I could trust. It left me fairly alone in the faith, most of the time since I lived 600 miles away from them and visits were usually only a few times a year, phone calls to my mom became my lifeline spiritually. After that first year of real excitement in my walk and having my eyes opened spiritually to the full reality of the spiritual world in Christ, I became pregnant with my first child. In that, I realized a long-held dream and ambition of mine. It was wonderful and yet it was also something that prevented me from giving my full attention to Jesus. It didn’t have to be, but I allowed it to happen because I became so obsessed with my baby.

The rigors of motherhood greatly reduced my spiritual time, with infant care and housekeeping chores. The cares of the world began to creep in more and more. I worried about being able to pay bills and keep a roof over my children’s heads, and how to keep everything together in my marriage and other relationships with my husband’s family and my own. All the time Jesus was waiting for me to come to him for help instead of taking it all on myself. But because I was so impatient, and untrusting, it was up to me to solve all the problems and puzzles life brings. I used worldly wisdom. The results were minimal. I continued on in this fashion, limping along as a very weak Christian for many years, never understanding that if I would learn to trust the Lord and wait on him, the truth would come out, and then he could resolve things in accordance with his will.

All the while, I had no idea about my true identity apart from being someone’s wife, someone’s daughter, sister, mother, friend, or employee. The point is, that everyone has varied relationships in their life that help them define who they are, but not eternally, we are only here for a little while. In Christ the relationships can be eternal, but not through any earthly identity. We gain a whole new heritage in Christ and this should be what defines our character and our relationship to all persons and things.

Things began to come to a head when I got divorced. Prior to my separation from my husband, the Lord spoke to me plainly and told me it was time to build my temple. Now he didn’t tell me to build it myself, but he was preparing to get me where it could be done by him, with some help from his friends. I moved back home to my mother and brother’s house at their invitation. I had a revelation after moving in there that I had always held my own identity in my relationships to other people. In that, I discovered I really had no idea what my identity was supposed to be. The Lord had to quicken to me that what he wants is for me to be his servant, and anything else would have to come from him. There have been times when I acted apart from that trying to engineer things, and I paid the price for it. Jesus has been kind to remove things from my life that pose real threats to our relationship, and I love him for that; however, now I must keep that – I cannot afford to forget all he’s done for me.

Since that time I have been a part of the church in my mom’s and brother’s home as God established it. This is where the Lord brought me through many unseen miracles; when I thought it could never happen. I know it is His will that I have a place in this ministry, established by God more than a generation ago, as long as I am obedient to His will. God prepared a place for me to wait for Jesus’ return, along with others of like faith.

In the work of building my temple, like many building projects, there have been bumps along the way – things I needed deliverance from and continue to this day, but all the material and tools are there. He has even graciously given me work I can do in his service. The temple I speak of is not a church building or meeting place, but that referenced in I Corinthians 6:16: “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?”

All of the things we are involved in are temporal in this life, apart from what Jesus Christ raises up and gives eternal permanence to. If any of my relationships survive into eternity, then they will be a part of my true identity in Jesus Christ, because they will be my ‘true’ siblings in spirit, along with all others who have been adopted by the Father; for they are actually siblings of Jesus Christ.

But not siblings only, because they are people called, they have become in the spirit, the habitation of God.

“Now ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;
And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone;
In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:
In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.”   ^{Ephesians 2:19-22}

How wonderfully great is that!! In the grand scheme – or to put it another way, in God’s plan for the ages – I am inconsequential on my own until I receive the fullness of God’s grace and mercy and walk in the spirit. Jesus, my Lord and Savior has taught me to wait for him and not do things on my own. While I wait, I look for him in everything and what his word on a matter is. The only identity that matters is what Jesus chooses to make of this earthen vessel. He can make anything out of it, but it is at his pleasure and it is up to me to accept this and let the ethereal become the actual in me; to do all to live up to this spiritual opportunity of faith.

I don’t care about anything else more than these things of Christ. They are first and foremost because everything else hinges on Christ and the Holy Ghost living in me and being allowed to hold sway in all my hopes and dreams, all of my aspirations for relationships with my family, friends, and fellow man. I still care for the people in my life, but it is God’s business what becomes of them. It is my business that I follow his lead in all my relationships with friends and all of his suggestions and protection with all my foes. My responsibility is to heed whatever the Lord asks of me or tells me to believe, to follow the Spirit’s suggestive leadings until I know His will, and then do by faith that which He is asking me to believe; as a good servant ought to do.

I pray I remain faithful to that, until the end – my only hope of realizing my true identity in Jesus Christ is this. As he tells His good and faithful servants in this life: If we are faithful He will give us a new name that only He knows. It will be a lover’s pet name that only they will ever know.