We are to imitate God throughour callings as beloved children. For this to occur, we must develop a functional understanding of what it means to be a “beloved child.” This type of knowledge operates “under the hood” of our life; it is subconscious and reflexive, requiring a “re-wiring” of our inner life. And developing it can take a lifetime.

When getting to know someone, it’s common to ask: So what do you do? We’ve all been asked this question when being introduced to someone at a social gathering or when sitting next to a stranger on an airplane. Most often, it’s an implicit inquiry about your career or lifestyle. In response, you’re expected to say something like: “I’m a stay-at-home mom” or “I’m a marketing consultant.”

More than simple curiosity, though, this familiar question reveals that, for most of us, what we do tends to define our sense of who we are. To get to know a person, you must learn about what they do. Our career, lifestyle, ambitions, or relationships are our way of saying to the world, “I matter! I’m significant! I’m consequential!” And that’s not entirely wrongheaded; after all, it’s not a bad thing to derive an appropriate level of meaning and fulfillment from the things we do.

But without a strong sense of our true identity we are setting ourselves up for discouragement. For instance, the stay-at-home mom becomes disheartened when one of her kids enters a difficult stage. As her parenting attempts fall short, she begins to wonder, “Am I a total failure?” Her identity hangs in the balance of that question. Or what about when the marketing consultant is asked to resign because his firm is “taking things in a different direction?” What then becomes of his identity?

Such questions, though painful, have a way of leading us back to the knowledge of who we are in Christ. In Him, we find that being a marketing consultant or a stay-at-home mom are actually callings, not identities. A calling is something you fulfill through words and actions for a greater purpose. An identity, on the other hand, is strictly based on God’s words and actions—what He says about you and what Hehas done to make you His beloved child. Your identity therefore is true of you all the way down to the deepest level of your being. If all else were stripped away—your career, your earthly relationships, your plans—your identity as a beloved child of God would still remain. Unlike our callings, which are temporary, our identity in Christ is eternally fixed and irrevocable.

And yet, our identity is nonetheless inextricably linked to our callings.

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