At night, the prison was as dimly lit as the souls of its residents, and the sound of Warden Bill Murphy chewing his tobacco played in stereo for the inmates, as he roamed the halls.

This prison had a reputation: offenders either came to die or be reborn. The Warden was feared, and rightly so, as he was known for his harsh, reforming ways. He trained the other officers never to look the prisoners in the eye; never call them by name; and never touch them unless by the end of an officer’s baton. To Bill Murphy and his unit, inmates were wild animals in need of breaking.

As one can imagine, the arrival of the prison twenty years earlier created a dramatic and seemingly unforgettable commotion among the neighboring towns. Some folks sold their homes and moved. Others remained but fearfully so, for the proximity of the prison was ominous. However, all fears disappeared into the shadow of Bill Murphy’s growing legacy as a persuasive arbiter of justice, a faithful churchgoer, and respected leader in the community.

Days fell from the calendar, and calendars from the wall, until July 14^th of Paul Matheson’s thirtieth year in prison finally arrived. This was his scheduled release date – the day he would be “free.” But thirty years is a long time, and freedom seemed to be but a foreign concept to him.

Upon his release, he began scouring the newspapers looking for work, spending several months on the hunt before being hired as a hand for one of the local farmers. He kept mostly to himself but when he did speak it was about the transformation that happened during his time in prison – the story of his rebirth.

With soft eyes and a gentle smile, he would tell of how the grace found in Scripture changed his heart one friendless night; and he eagerly celebrated the changing agent of grace that went where the severe rule of the Warden could not go, and changed things the law could not change.

For the next eight years he enjoyed the labor, satisfied knowing he was helping the community; and he gladly told his story to any that would listen, until he passed away into obscurity one cool, summer night.

As the scandal of Paul Matheson grew dim in the collective memory of Tellson County, the Warden continued to publically capitalize on the depravity of his inmates for the sake of his antithetically clean reputation. Unfortunately, he was successful until the day he died, never aware of the shortcomings and criminal intentions of his own heart.

One man died. One man was reborn.

“To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: ‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.’”            

Luke 18:9-14 (NIV)

One day, a rich man walked up to the beggar as he was lying on the side of the road. The rich man grabbed him by the shoulders, stood the beggar to his feet, and said, “I have a treasure I want to give you. It will make you the father of a great family and the treasure will never run out. Be careful, though, to remember that it is a gift. Use this to bless others.”

Suddenly the rich man vanished, and in his place was a giant treasure chest. The beggar couldn’t believe what had just happened and carried the treasure away, rejoicing in the wonderful and undeserved gift the rich man bestowed upon him.

A few months later, the beggar returned to the villages, but this time as a rich man. All the people sought to know him and everyone feared his great wealth. The man began having children, and his family grew and grew and grew. Pretty soon, the old beggar’s family had taken over all of the villages he used to wander before the treasure.

As long as the beggar was alive, his family remembered that their wealth was a gift. They cherished the treasure and did all they could to help the poor and needy in their area. The family was constantly generous and their fame spread throughout the country.

One day, the beggar who became a rich man died, and the unending treasure passed to his children. Within weeks, the children had forgotten that the treasure was a gift. They forgot that their father was once a beggar and became cruel to those in need around them. There were some brothers who wanted the treasure for themselves, so they began fighting about it. Some would use the treasure to gain favor from surrounding villages, while others just got fat off of the everlasting bounty the treasure provided.

Eventually, the treasure tore the family apart. One of the children, in seeing the ruin of his family, remembered the story his father told of how he got the treasure. He realized that the family’s ingratitude is what led them to their demise. But instead of blaming the family for abusing the treasure, he blamed the treasure and schemed a way to get rid of it.

That night, while the rest of his family slept, the young son stole the treasure and buried it in a nearby field. When the family woke up, the son told them what he did. Although at first the family was angry, they eventually came to agree with the young son and decided to keep it buried. If they weren’t able to handle the treasure, they agreed that nobody could.

From time to time, the family would remember the treasure, but they never dared dig it up. The undeserved gift the beggar received remained buried in the field.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

““The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” (Matthew 13:44 ESV)

I think through the motions of the day, and realize just how hard they are at work – turning keys, pressing buttons, opening and closing doors.

And then there are the host of items they hold each hour – from briefcase to keys to coffee to iphone, to my wife’s hand on a walk in the evening.

Waiting and willing, these hands of mine.

Willing to do as directed, to grasp what is desired. These hands, often directed by the preference of the moment – more subtlety directed by my comfort seeking, pain avoiding heart. I realize my hands are not just grasping tools to perform tasks, they are often doing as they are told by my distracted, self-seeking loves.

But there is a moment each week that I have grown increasingly fond of, and it is the moment when my hands are forced to hold two things as I sit among my family:

A piece of bread, and a cup of juice.

My hurried, wandering distracted heart – drawn, if but for the moment – to see the beauty of Christ, his broken body and shed blood – my hands must let go of all other things and hold onto these two items – these two small things that point me to He who died for me – for you.

If only my heart, our hearts, would let go of all other things but He who died for me – for you.

I pray, family, that our hands in these moments might keep our hearts still as we sit and let the beauty of the Gospel be known in fullness of joy – and that these moments would overflow into the rhythm of our lives.

Train our hearts, Lord.

Love. Action. Denial. Repentance. Community. Reverence. Ebenezer. Flight. Blood. Passover. Israel. Lamb. Prepared. Haste. Memorial. Deliverance. Sin. Promise. Sacrifice. Worship. Blessing. Death. People. Provision. Native. Family. One House. Remembrance. Bread. Slavery. Sign. Regularity. Strength. Fidelity. Redemption. Broken. First-Born. Fear. Power. Altar. LORD. Gift. Melchizedek. Witness. Consecration. Faithfulness. Restoration. Obedience. Grace. Unity. Submission. Disciples. Wine. Body. Wrath. Command. Covenant. Forgiveness. Church. Cup. Vine. Kingdom. Betrayal. Substitution. Gratitude. Drink. Atonement. Prayer. Suffering. Proclamation. Return. Hallelujah. Rejoice!

I would like you to notice me.
Pay me a compliment,
Listen to what I have to say.
Let me know you value me.
Do this small thing for me,
And I will not ask it of you for a while –
For I have other ears to speak to,
Other thoughts to share.
Besides,
I am afraid I have shared too much,
For it seems you know when I share too little.
I have played this game before,
Hoped one would know how to understand me,
And speak to this void.
Maybe one would fill it.

I have bought the clothes to look like them,
I have listened and learned the lyrics to sing along,
I have come to this city to find community,
But found that my time is better spent chasing the city,
For there I can disappear.
I have read the writings and prayed for peace.

My hope is as thin as my cash, and I do not know where to go.
Nothing seems to satisfy,
And every ad tells me it should be different.
When will it be different?

Perhaps I have said to much, but really – what is there to say?
If only I could find the way.

Identity: rest.

Born into a system beyond you –
Your very values set by a world steeped in sin.
Corrupt and needy, the perceived solution to need –
- the fix towards being uncorrupt, whole –
this has consistently let you down,
Left you displaced.
Your worth misplaced.
Your value unknown.
Your image so marred, so distorted from the beauty of your original design.
And then there are these things you chase,
And they only string you along.
To know the song the crowd sings but not be able to rejoice in Me with them,
Why waste your breath?
I gave you that breath.
Your worth I know,
Your joy I hold,
Your identity I made and will gladly show you.
Will you come to me?

Come to me, and I will give you rest.

The God of the Bible is not a tree. He is not the universe. I am not the God of the Bible. While this may help us understand who and what God is not, these contrasts do not do justice in describing who he actually is. I will echo A.W. Tozer in saying that, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”, and what we believe about this identity will shape what we believe about all other identities.

Because I am a skeptic at heart, and have overly-analytical tendencies, identity has been a struggle for me as of late…here’s why. I know that God is immutable, yet all else is ever-changing. So, while my faith is anchored in the One who does not change, my struggle comes in knowing how to appropriate my faith in different, changing contexts. If the things that seem routine and dependable are actually different every day – including sunrises! – how can we confidently claim an identity that wont change tomorrow?

God is sovereign and through his providence he has “wired” everyone a certain way, be it chemically, genetically, through nurture and experiences, or whatever. That being said, do we choose our identity or does it choose us? In other words, do we recognize our identity or do we define it?

I would humbly argue both. Our decisions shape our circumstances and our circumstances shape who we are, but God ordains all of it (Prov. 16:9). While I wouldn’t subscribe to the “you-can-do-anything-you-put-your-mind-to” wisdom of Dr. Emmett Brown, I do think we have much to say about who we become…God just has more say. And according to Scripture, my identity is a missionary (Matt. 28:18-20), so this should have much to say about how I make my decisions. So, going back to my struggle with identity, I have a hard time determining how to live out this missionary identity in everyday contexts.

With absolutely no authority, I’ll take a guess at how to answer this problem. These are six suggestions for how to discover how to appropriate your identity*:

1. Pray – pray that God would give you wisdom and joy as you pursue your passions and make decisions.
2. Live in Community – share your life with others and it will bring more out of them and they will bring more out of you (see C.S. Lewis quote on friendship).
3. Seek your spiritual gifts – Matt Carter offered some wisdom a while back on how to seek spiritual gifts, saying to, “serve broadly and serve often”.
4. Be patient – in a world that is always changing, we shouldn’t expect a formulaic life, producing results when we want them
5. Be in the Word – going back to Tozer’s quote, what we think about God is of utmost importance, and what we know from his revelation will determine how we think about him and how we think about all things
6. Obey – live a life of obedience, regardless of the context, and God will guide you.

Ultimately, identity is not just about the individual, it is also about a) the One who assigns the identity and b) our relation to those around us. A “C” note may still be a “C” if there were no other notes, but God designed it so that not only is there this distinct “C”, but there are many other distinct notes to interact with. While our identity may be discovered and created in unique ways, it is never done in isolation.

*Noted: these six suggestions may seem too theoretical with little to no practical advice.

For most of the life of identity, it remained stable. As long as the definition of a person or thing could be made specific by its relationship and subordination to another, identity had peace. The first signs of its impending doom was with the onset of existentialism and the subsequent rise of structuralism. At the turn of the twentieth century, philosophers began to look at the idea of identity and define it less by what is shared, and more by what is different. Identity quickly became what is different about an object or thing in relation to other things. Unfortunately, as soon as we divorced our identities from what we share in others and make the measure of our identity our difference, the differences became too numerous to mean anything. With the antiquation of sameness and the ineffectiveness of difference, identity became completely separated from its etymological roots. The understanding of identity, at least in its most personal sense, is now the uniqueness of a person or thing defined without outside influence.

The phrase identity crisis was first used in 1954. This is significant because this happened shortly after the shift in meaning for the word identity. If the definition of identity is dependent on self-definition, a crisis is created. The demise of identity was brought about by the retreat from recognizing the sameness we have with each other. As it stands now, without the credibility of outside signifiers, the postmodern condition is one that is suffering an identity crisis.

Although we may try, we will never be able to establish our own identity without looking outside of ourselves and recognizing the dependence we have on outside referents. The shift in identity, the fall of self into crisis, was spurred on by the seeming inadequacy of defining ourselves through other people. But what if the problem wasn’t the manner of identity through sameness, but rather we were finding our identity in the sameness with the wrong thing?

The salvation of identity doesn’t come with the rejection of sameness, but with finding our sameness in the only thing that can truly define us…Christ.

And this is the gospel for postmodernism.