Austin Thomas is.

I’ve got and identity issue.  By ‘identity issue’ I mean that I just don’t know who I am sometimes.  And it seems to me that college just compounds that feeling.  Up here at Jessup I’m surrounded by people I either want to be like or want to impress…and I guess that’s good, in some ways.  Being around such amazing people certainly makes me more inclined to do amazing things like write more poetry, read more books, be a nicer person, do more adventurous things and tell more funny stories, or actually pay attention to the clothes that I wear and the words that I say.  But it’s also got a negative effect…and by ‘it’s also got a negative effect’, I mean that I just don’t know who I am sometimes.

While I may not know who I am sometimes, I do know a couple things.  My name is Austin Thomas and I’m 19 years old.  I like to read, write, and think.  I learned to play guitar when I was in high school to impress girls and play for Young Life club and I really only do one of those things these days (the latter, if you’re wondering), but I like to make music, too.  I also love to teach, and to do live-giving things like hang out with my middle school friends or worship with widows and lepers and street kids or partake in a spontaneous playground game with whoever happens to be around.  I worked for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, and I’m a nerdy fellow who gets excited for things like the Large Hadron Collider, new Star Wars novels, or ridiculously long film adaptations of great British books.  I’m a sucker for coffee, coffee shops, and hole-in-the-wall bookstores.  I wish that I could grow a full beard and play the banjo, because if I ever did that I’m reasonably certain that all of my wildest folklore dreams would come true.  I care a lot about poverty, injustice, and love (the kind we’re supposed to show our neighbors), and I’m sure that whatever I do when I grow up will involve those three things.  When I was in Jr. High, I just knew that I was going to be the next Eminem, because I aint frontin, goon.  I am surrounded by a group of amazing friends and an amazing family, and I strive to do them proud some day.

And that’s just the beginning.  But it should also be the end.  Because none of that stuff matters.  Of course, by ‘because none of that stuff matters’ I mean that it’s insanely important to me in my life right now, because that’s how I define myself.  These are the things that I use to figure out who I am.  That list of qualities and quirks and facts and dreams, that’s where I find my value.  That’s where I find my identity.

And that’s the problem.

Because I have identity issues.  And so do you.  And so does Barack Obama.  And so does every human who has ever existed, except for Jesus.

And that’s the answer.

I mean, let’s think about it.  That’s really what sin is, isn’t it?  One big, messy, global identity issue?

We don’t believe that we’re humans, we believe that we’re Gods.  Our entire lives are dedicated to either making life as comfortable as possible for ourselves and our loved ones, or making sure that other people will remember us after we die…making sure that we’re immortal.  And that’s what God is supposed to worry about, isn’t it?

We don’t believe that we’re stewards, we believe that we’re consumers, free to use and abuse, with little regard to the consequence.  Cars, clothes, toys, energy, all of those things exist to make my life better.  Friends or pretty girls.  They exist for my use, to be consumed and then dropped once they’re expired or not useful to me any more.  Church is there for me to get ‘filled up’, so that I can have a ‘right relationship with God’.

And that’s really the answer, isn’t it?  Jesus?  God incarnate?  Jesus ‘your sins have been forgiven’ Christ, the Risen Lord?

So, we’ve got an identity issue.  And by ‘identity issue’, I mean that we just don’t know who we are sometimes.  Because really, we’re stewards.  We’re humans.  We are children of Jesus, adopted into his family and lovingly created and planned out since “before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4).

And I have a hard time buying that sometimes.

But that’s okay.

In fact, it’s natural.

And it doesn’t change the fact that my identity lies in Christ, and not in the things of this world.

I’ve just got to figure out how to wake up to that, and God’s made that a lot easier by putting me around such amazing people, some who I want to impress, and others who I want to be like.  So I’m going to give it a shot.  Austin Thomas is God’s son. God’s creation. God’s love.  And I can’t fit that in a little box on the internet asking “about me”…even though I try to…every day.  But that’s okay.  Because through all of that, there’s love, and we can only make love our identity by loving each other.  And I can do that.  May we all try!

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