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Campus Principal's Message - Week 11, Term 2
Finding Your True Identity
"In Him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of His glory."
Ephesians 1:11-12
A while back, I listened to a podcast featuring a speaker named Jamie Winship. Jamie is a Christian who has worked in American law enforcement and the CIA, and has lived and raised his family in some of the most dangerous countries in the world - including Indonesia, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq and Israel.
He is passionate about people discovering their true identity: an identity rooted in the understanding that we are each designed by God, known and loved by Him before we were even formed.
One part of the podcast focused on his young son, Caleb. Jamie had been encouraging Caleb to think about his identity and to ask God directly who He had created him to be. He was surprised by what Caleb said. With great certainty, Caleb felt God was calling him to be a "skater for Jesus." The challenge for Jamie was that Caleb did not own a skateboard, had never been seen on one, and they were about to move to Iraq - a country where Jamie could find no trace of a skateboarding community or any infrastructure.
What followed is a remarkable story. Caleb got a skateboard and began skating around the compound where they lived. US soldiers noticed and invited him to skate at a nearby park in the evenings, providing security while he did. When the family moved to Jordan, Caleb kept skating, and local young people began joining him. One day, a Red Bull representative, who was actively searching for the company's first Middle Eastern sponsored skateboarder, spotted Caleb. Caleb was given a sponsorship and he went on to win competitions. His growing influence caught the attention of the King of Jordan, who granted Caleb land to build the first skate park in the country. Caleb later launched his own skate brand.
It is an extraordinary story and not one that each of us will experience. Yet each of us has a story, and most of us are, in some way, trying to work out who we are.
A family member of mine once shared that when they asked this same question of God, they sensed God directing them to look at the garden. Not at the trees, the flowers, or the grass, but at the soil. They felt God was showing them that their identity was the dirt: not in a negative sense, but as something foundational, essential and life-giving - the very thing the garden needs in order to grow. In their role as a teacher and mother, they started to understand this and came to peace with this identity.
In a world so focused on identity, it is easy to quickly label ourselves and others' identity without pausing to consider our true identity in the God who made us, who has known us since we were in our mother's womb. There is quite a difference between being a ‘skater for Jesus’ or being ‘dirt for Jesus’, but both are equally important. We need people to discover their identity, own it, and work out how to utilise it to serve God and others. My prayer is that we all take time to sit with that question and give God the space to answer it.
