You are the Class Clown; I am Pleased with You

Re-thinking a 43-Year Search for Identity

When you grow up in poor, rural Missouri, you learn to question your identity long before you know what it means to question your identity. An identity is thrust upon you based on your family’s reputation in the small town. It’s forced upon you by the other children in school who have wealthy parents and, therefore, they think they’re better than you. The question is draped over you before you even realize how profoundly your parents’ divorce or addictions are going to shape your sense of self. 

To survive, I have to find ways to assert my identity. I became the funny kid in class. Quick, cynical sarcasm, it turns out, goes a long way to help people see (a version of) you rather than the clothes you’re wearing for the 3rd day in a row. Humor can get you out of being bullied. It can even make girls give you a brief second look.

It just can’t take the shame away. It just can’t whisk away the feelings of worthlessness. It certainly cannot make you feel loved in any ultimate sense.

So I began wrestling with questions of identity long before I knew they were questions. Whether it was humor or girlfriends, Bible knowledge or productivity, I have put on mask after mask that might help that little boy who felt like trailer trash actually feel like he’s a somebody, a person who is loved. But none of these ever made me love myself. None of them helped me believe that I am loved by God. 

As an adult, I traded humor for productivity. I became the first person in my family to go to college. I got two Master’s Degrees. I finished a PhD. I’ve written two books. I’m working on others. And yet, all of this productivity and hustle still feels like yet one more mask to cover the shame of that little boy whose dad left.

All this striving for identity, however, has made me wonder more recently if I don’t have the whole thing backward. I have been trying since I was 8-years old to find my identity, but what if my identity is already there just waiting to be embraced?

I’m struck in the gospels by the fact that God says to Jesus, “You are my loved Son; I am pleased with you,” in the baptism scene that launches Jesus’s public ministry. Before the temptations - two of which call Jesus’s sonship into question - and before he ever performs a public miracle or teaches a single word, God affirms that Jesus is loved. 

He’s done nothing.

He’s accomplished nothing.

He’s never made a person laugh or restored a withered hand.

He’s never told off religious or political oppressors.

He’s never succeeded in defeating temptation or rising from the grave.

He just is. And he’s loved as he is. 

In the temptations, the Devil wants him to prove his identity by performance. But Jesus decidedly rejects all the performative aspects of religion and politics by, first, understanding and embracing that he’s loved. 

I don’t know that that 8-year old in me will be so easily quieted by repeating to myself, “I am God’s loved son! God is well-pleased with me.” But I do know from 43 years of trying to find my identity in other things - even good things - that none of them has quieted that boy’s need for affirmation. Maybe in 2024 I can try a new method - leaning into the Divine Reverberations that I am loved.

Your Turn to Reflect:

• Where have you searched for identity throughout your life?

• Is it easy or difficult to believe God loves you? Why do you think you answered the way you did?

• What would it change in your relationship with God or others if you really believed that your identity is not in your performance or productivity?