Identity in Christ: Biblical Mindset for Modern Authors
"If you believe God created you to be writer, then you are free to pursue that goal with the boldness of impacting the world for Christ."
True Identity: Biblical Mindset for Writers
From the time you become a junior in high school even until you’re fresh out of college and looking for a job, the first question people ask you stays the same: “What are you going to do with your life?” Around this time, if you haven’t figured out exactly what you want to do, people are shocked or begin to decide you’ll end up working at McDonalds for the rest of your life. A response to this age-old questions like, “I am going to be a successful writer,” leads to a chorus of disapproval. People think you’ll be living under a bridge and begging people to buy your books to scrape by. This may leave you wondering—especially if you can’t seem to decide what to do with yourself or have picked a seemingly wrong career path—why there’s such a fuss about planning out your entire future so suddenly. One word can answer that question, but with it comes a multitude of other questions: Identity. Those around you want you to have a solid grasp of who you are—or at least who you think you are—when you finally fly the coop, so you’re not left drifting in purposelessness and regrets of a wasted life.
The whole idea of planning out your entire future at one time is innately flawed. No matter how well we plan, life throws unexpected things at us that force us to change everything. Our plans don’t always line up with God’s sovereign plan for our lives and the whole universe. We live in a world where everyone has many plans in their minds, but believers must recognize that it is the purpose of the Lord that will ultimately stand (Prov. 19:21, ESV). While the knowledge of God’s sovereignty doesn’t stop believers from planning, it plays an essential role in defining their identity, one that is in Christ alone.
The Importance of Finding True Identity
One person can be identified in many ways, which often confuses small children. A woman, let’s call her Mary, can be a wife, mother, aunt, and a sister. To Mary’s children she is simply “Mommy” while others know that she is several different things at once. Eventually, Mary’s children will come to the shocking realization that Mary’s real name isn’t Mommy, and feel that they have been lied to their entire lives. While you know this isn’t true and Mary can have multiple defining characteristics, it ties nicely into another theme closely woven with identity: confusion.
The whole point of identifying someone is to avoid confusing them with someone else, but that in itself becomes confusing when we’re faced with several different ways a person could be classified. This is why in writing you’re often told to introduce each character with one main defining characteristic, so the readers know who the character is without being overwhelmed with information. In our world—or at least western civilization—, purpose seems to be the main source of identity. Everyone wants to know what you do or what you plan to do to get an easy grasp on your potential interests and things you might have in common. Humans are always doing something. After all, God created us to work. The reason why we work, or our purpose, shapes everything about how we characterize, or identify, ourselves.
Every human innately searches for purpose. God created us to do so. Augustine sums this truth up well in his Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You,” (Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, trans. F.J. Sheed). God created us with the purpose to serve and bring glory to Him. We were created with a God-given purpose. This desire, however, was marred by the Fall. Instead of seeking to please God with our actions, we seek fulfilment and identity in other places like in our successes, our failures, the opinions of others or popularity, and even in our fears. These sources of identity will only disappoint, leading to confusion, anxiety, and depression. We can never truly be satisfied in anything other than what we were created to be satisfied in.
Despite this, western society places autonomy as the sole source of identity. Mantras like “You can be anything you want to be when you grow up,” and “Follow your heart,” really sum up this philosophy well. It’s all about you. You get to decide what you want to do with your entire life right now. Unfortunately, this is just not how life works. We have no control of the future; it belongs to Christ. No matter how many solid plans and achievable goals we make, life has a way of throwing a wrench in our spokes and sending us sprawling onto rough asphalt with knees scraped and plans scattered. For the unbeliever, that’s the end of the story. There’s nothing that can be done, so you just keep dusting yourself off, gathering your plans, and going on until life inevitably trips you up again. You keep going no matter how fruitless your efforts may seem since obviously mere human willpower can change the plan of a sovereign God.
This cycle of hopelessness has led to a spike in depression and anxiety rates in young people. They realize they don’t want to be trapped in the endless loop of autonomy but can’t find an escape route that truly satisfies, especially as western society veers from the Christian values that shaped it. It no longer values the family, encouraging all to avoid the fulfillment that comes in serving others and instead serve themselves. It no longer values a standard of morals, telling everyone that they can live on their own subjective truth while all at once demanding that everyone think a certain, inclusive way. This tossing to and fro causes people to doubt everything they’re told and has inevitably devalued truth. Nothing is objectively right or wrong, it’s only what seems right in your own eyes, just as in the horrible days of Israel’s judges (Judges 21:25, ESV). When their plans fail, they have no real hope of future success, and without a standard of what a fulfilled life ought to look like, they are trapped in the purposelessness they so desperately want to avoid.
Sum Up
However, for those who believe in Christ, there is hope. Our identity is in Christ and He is the perfect standard of a fulfilled life. Jesus submitted Himself to the plan of God and was obedient to the point of dying on the cross, suffering the full wrath of God in our place (Phil. 2:8, ESV). His death brought victory that can never be marred by our failures and shortcomings. Our sins have been covered by Jesus’ blood and we can look forward to a renewed world, free of sin’s curse, when he returns. While relying on ourselves and our plans only leads to dissatisfaction, submitting to God and His plan for our lives gives us the purpose of being His ambassadors and sharing the reconciliation to God and victory that is now available for all sinners who repent (2 Cor. 5:20, ESV).
A purposeful life can only truly be found in Christ. Although this seems rather limiting, it is actually freeing for the believer. If what we are doing is not sinful, we can do it to the glory of God; in fact, it’s exactly what 1 Corinthians 10:31 commands us to do. Believers can shine the light of Christ into the world in as many ways that there are people. God created you uniquely for the circumstances He knows you will face. He placed you exactly where you need to be at exactly the right time (Esth. 4:14, ESV). If you believe God created you to be writer, then you are free to pursue that goal with the boldness of impacting the world for Christ.
Augustine modeled this through his Confessions. He boldly told the story of his life including all the things he placed his identity in as his soul searched for rest in Christ. God utilized the words of Augustine to impact countless lives long after his death. God can use your words to shine the light of Christ in the same way as Augustine’s or in a very different way. Whatever the scope of your writing's impact, you can rest assured that God has put a desire to write in your heart for a reason and that his sovereign plan will guide you in the good works that he has prepared for you to do beforehand (Eph. 2:10, ESV).
