Christ wins.

At this point, I am asking myself what I'm really known for. Over the last couple weeks, I've had two falls, one snowboarding, and the other skating, that have both hurt my wrist. Now, I don't mean to tell you that for pity's sake, but to share with you the question that arose, "Where do I find my identity?" and then share with you my answer.

Now, Snowboarding is one things I love doing. To be honest, I've put a lot of money into it so that I can enjoy it and experience the joy of hanging out with friends doing so. But, not only that, I believe I've put a lot of effort into developing myself as a skater/surfer/boarder which kinda all goes hand in hand. I've invested in the clothes, I have the gear, I can even carry on a conversation with any boarder mostly about the newest technology for snowboarding that might "revolutionize" the entire world of boarding. Anyway, point being, I feel as though I can identify myself as a boarder.
And so over break it was clear, I was gonna hit the slopes. I wasn't pushing myself like I did last year but I still managed to fall doing a simple boardslide on a down box, which is something I've done hundreds of times it seems. Well when I fell off, I landed on my wrist and could feel it start throbbing immediately. The first thing I thought about was guitar (my baby). And I was facing a real question. Ignorantly I told myself, it's not broken it will just go away, because the consequences of a broken arm were much too tragic. Not being able to play guitar for 6 weeks at least is what I was looking at. Because I wanted to play guitar for youth group over the weekend I just kinda sucked it up and wore a brace and battled through it for sunday.
So a couple days later I was hanging out with one of my best friends Mike Johns. I told him about the fall and how worried I was about guitar but it led into a pretty cool conversation. Psychology tells me that between the years 18-24 I will be searching for what I find my identity in; so, at this age, a lot of change takes place. And I can totally see that as being true and identifiable.Follow me now as I take a very large step back. I can tell you I'd love to be known as a musician in one sense but also at the same time keep some other influences in there too, but is that really who I am? What if those things were taken away and I really wasn't able to do them for an extended of period of time. Who would I be? Well this is where my conversation with Mike went, who is a professional drummer and aspiring sound technician. "Where does our identity come from?" Maybe a better question to ask is, "In what should our identity lie?" The simple is answer is Christ. Matt 7:24 says "Therefore whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall for it was founded on the rock."
But I don't think I find my identity on the rock all the time. Tim Keller, a influential theologian says, " a counterfeit god is anything so central and essential to your life that, should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living." I'm not that extreme about snowboarding or guitar but I'm sure you can understand the importance of it. He continues, " An idol has such a controlling position in your heart that you can spend most of your passion and energy, your emotional and financial resources , on it without a second thought. It can be family and children, or career and making money or achievement," and it goes on for quiet a bit longer. Where I find my identity is a much bigger issue at hand because it shows what really is ruling over my heart. Constantly Christ must be put on the throne of my heart. So how do we free ourselves, well we look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith and, Tim Keller says this as well, " The only way to free ourselves from the destructive influence of counterfeit gods is to turn back to the true one. The living God who revealed himself at Mount Sinai and on the Cross, is the only Lord who, if you find him, can truly fulfill you, and if you fail him, can truly forgive you."
So, I'm going to get my wrist checked out tomorrow after falling again yesterday, but no matter what I can be confident in the fact, that I am the Lord's. Eph:1 4-6 says, "Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. having predestined himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved." More importantly than anything else, God loves us and that's our identity. We are saved by grace even though we don't deserve it, He loves us and thats all we need to worry about.