Coke or Pepsi? Cat person or dog person? College or not? Greek life or not? Wealthy or poor or somewhere in between? Are you in a FLO? What about a bible study or professional organization? Where did you intern? Did you work at summer camp? What's your GPA? Do you have a boyfriend?
There are so many things that we use to identify other people. It's our nature to try to make order out of chaos and put things (and people) into categories. Business major, theater fanatic, hipster, engineer, and the list goes on. When we put other people into categories, it's hard not to do the same with ourselves. We can very easily turn our own characteristics into true identifiers. We begin to see these things we come from and are a part of as what we are, not what we do.
Don't get me wrong; categories and characteristics are natural and not bad at all. The danger only lies in beginning to let the things we do define who we are. Especially during college, when schools like Texas A&M have over 1,000 organizations, it is very easy to begin finding your identity in your organizations and your grades and your friends, when really, none of those things have all the answers or will ever satisfy.
The only person we should ever find our identity in is Jesus, because He created everything and called us into being. His is the only identity that is constant and secure. Finding your center and your strength in being a child of God is not always easy, especially when the world is pulling you in so many different directions. But we must remember that being a Chi Omega, an Aggie, and an accounting major will not last forever. So if I find my identity in those things -- if I live and die by how Chi O, A&M, and my major define me as a person -- as a child of the King of Kings, I am denying a lot of who I am as a person. I am limiting myself to just a few tangible things.
We are so much more than words on a resume, or the meetings we go to every week or the organizations I got into (or didn't). You can't put "loving" on a resume or join the "good friend" club. There's no place on a transcript for, "I've gone through hell and back during college but I'm still here," but Jesus already knows all of that. He knows the intimate details of your life and your dreams, so why wouldn't you want to define yourself with the one person who knows more about you than even you do? You are more than the likes on an Instagram post, the number of your GPA, the ranking of your organizations, your relationship status -- you are a child of the God of the universe.
