> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.takeonestepforward.org/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Who Am I? - URL: https://www.takeonestepforward.org/who-am-i/ - Published: 2026-09-28T15:36:56.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-08T21:03:40.000Z - Description: We collect labels from our successes, failures, relationships, and the opinions of others. But what happens when we stop asking the world who we are and start asking God? - Author: Christopher Lyman - Tags: Purpose, Perspective ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/d7/05/d705cbac-291e-4b77-9104-3d2608d56da8/content/media/2026/09/Who-Have-You-Given-the-Right-to-Tell-You-Who-You-Are__thumb.png) Who Have You Given the Right to Tell You Who You Are 0:00 /721.17 1× ### Who Have You Given the Right to Tell You Who You Are? In eighth grade, I found my people. At least I thought I did. Middle school had its own unofficial social map. At my school, if you wanted to belong, there seemed to be three main options: the jocks, the drama kids, or the rebel skateboarders. There were a couple of problems. I didn't play sports. I was way too shy and insecure to get on a stage. And I didn't know how to skateboard. Naturally, I became a skateboarder. It seemed like the only place I could fit in without being discovered. For whatever reason, the kids at the skater table welcomed me. I made friends and eventually became pretty well known among my peers. They even gave me a nickname: **La Chef**, because I was a great cook. Thanks, Mom. For a kid trying to figure out who he was, it felt pretty good. I had friends. People knew me. Never mind the minor detail that I couldn't actually skateboard. In some ways, I felt like a fraud. But it was middle school, so let's be honest—I probably wasn't the only one. Something important was happening beneath all of that. I was answering one of the most fundamental questions we ask: **Who am I?** Without realizing it, I was allowing the people around me to provide the answer. *I belonged here. These were my people. This was who I was.* The problem wasn't having friends. We were created for relationship. The problem was building my identity around the place where I found acceptance. Eventually, belonging to the wrong things began pulling my life in the wrong direction. By tenth grade, I had essentially given up on school. I dropped out and pursued work in the restaurant business, and just like that, another identity began taking shape. I wasn't the kid who struggled in school anymore. **I was the cook.** I could work. I could succeed. I could prove myself. Years later, through the woman who would become my wife, I came to know Jesus. Slowly, God began teaching me something I wish that insecure eighth-grade kid had understood: **I had spent years trying to become someone without first understanding who I already was.** ## We Were Made to Worship—and to Belong There are desires woven deeply into us that have tremendous influence over our identity. Two of them are our desire to **worship** and our desire to **belong**. We were created by God, for God. Scripture describes humanity as made in His image, created for His glory, and invited into relationship with Him. But we're remarkably good at taking desires meant to draw us toward God and attaching them to something else. We still worship. We just change the object: success, security, money, achievement, careers, bodies, goals, reputation—even the life we imagined we were supposed to have. Whatever becomes the thing that tells me *I am okay, I am valuable, I am successful, I matter* begins to have tremendous power over my identity. Belonging works the same way. We want people who know us. We want a table where there's a seat for us. We want to walk into a room and know, *These are my people.* That desire can draw us into wonderful things: family, friendship, church, teams, community. But it can also pull us toward unhealthy relationships, destructive social circles, nightlife, gangs, extreme groups, or communities that demand we compromise who we are for acceptance. The labels change as we get older, but I'm not sure we're all that different from kids trying to decide which table to sit at. We just build more sophisticated tables: career, politics, social status, fitness, parenting, ministry, education, money. Even our pain can become a place where we find identity. Eventually, something whispers, *This is who you are.* And if we're not careful, we agree with it. ## The Agreements We Make Coming to Christ changed the direction of my life, but it didn't instantly erase every identity I had built before Him. At twenty-seven, I went back to school. I earned my GED, attended Fresno Pacific University, and eventually graduated with a master's degree in Special Education. That's a very different story from the kid who dropped out of high school. But here's what I've discovered: **You can change your circumstances faster than you change the agreements you've made about yourself.** For years, I had believed things about my intelligence, body, confidence, value, and abilities. Some were spoken over me. Others came from experiences. Some were conclusions I reached all by myself. But somewhere along the way, I agreed with them: *This is who I am.* Even today, I occasionally find remnants of those old agreements trying to reappear. Maybe you do too: *I'm not smart enough. I'm unattractive. I'm a failure. I'm the successful one. I'm the funny one. I'm the difficult one. I'm the strong one. I'm the disappointment. I'm the person everybody needs. I'm the one nobody wants.* Some sound positive. Others are obviously destructive. But either can become dangerous when we ask them to carry the weight of our identity. Careers change. Bodies age. Relationships end. Money disappears. Children grow up. Achievements fade. People change their opinions of us. Anything temporary makes a terrible foundation for something as important as identity. So if those things don't get to answer the question, who does? Maybe we should ask the One who made us. ## Who Does God Say You Are? Psalm 139:13–16 says God knit us together in our mother's womb. Before accepting every label we've collected along the way, maybe we should consider what **He** says about us. ### You Are Created in His Image > “So God created mankind in his own image...” — Genesis 1:27 Before your accomplishments, failures, education, income, appearance, relationships, or reputation, Scripture begins here: **You bear the image of God.** Human beings possess a God-given dignity that isn't earned through performance. Your value didn't begin when somebody noticed you, increase when you succeeded, or disappear when you failed. You were intentionally created to reflect your Creator. ### You Are Known Psalm 139:1–4 describes God knowing when we sit and rise and even knowing our thoughts before we speak. Before you ever tried to figure yourself out, **God already knew you.** So much of identity is spent trying to become known: *Notice me. Choose me. Understand me. Accept me.* But God knows beyond the version we present to everyone else. He knows the parts we advertise and the parts we hide. He isn't discovering you as you go. ### In Christ, You Are a Son or Daughter—and an Heir > “Yet to all who did receive him... he gave the right to become children of God.” — John 1:12 Romans 8:15 says believers have received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry, **“Abba, Father.”** Christianity doesn't merely give us a new philosophy. **It gives us a Father.** For those who belong to Christ, we aren't trying to convince God to accept us. We've been brought into His family. Romans 8:17 says that if we are God's children, then we are also **heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.** The world teaches us to establish our worth through what we accumulate. God says our deepest inheritance isn't something we earn. It's something we receive because we belong to Him. Your bank account, career, and earthly inheritance may change, but none determine your standing in God's family. Before I'm a teacher, writer, husband, father, missionary, or anything else I may become, **I am His.** ### You Are Chosen 1 Peter 2:9 calls believers **“a chosen people,”** and Ephesians 1:4 says God chose us in Christ before the creation of the world. Most of us know what it feels like not to be chosen—uninvited, unhired, unaccepted, overlooked. Middle-school Chris desperately wanted somebody to say, *You can sit here.* The gospel offers something deeper. In Christ, our identity doesn't depend upon constantly auditioning for acceptance. **God has called us His own.** And being chosen isn't only about belonging. 1 Peter 2:9 also calls believers a **“royal priesthood”**—people who belong to God and have been given the privilege of representing Him wherever He has placed them. You don't need a platform, pulpit, title, or ministry position to have spiritual purpose. Your life can point toward God right where you are. ### You Are Redeemed > “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins...” — Ephesians 1:7 Redeemed means something has been reclaimed. Your worst moment doesn't get naming rights over your life. Neither does your addiction, divorce, failure, past, or shame. Your sin matters. Christianity doesn't pretend otherwise. But for the person who belongs to Christ, sin is no longer the final word. **Jesus is.** You are not merely the sum of everything you've done. In Christ, you are redeemed. ### You Are a Saint Paul regularly addressed ordinary Christians as God's holy people—often translated **saints**. In 1 Corinthians 1:2, he writes to those who are “sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people.” If you've read Corinthians, you know these weren't people who had everything figured out. Being called a saint doesn't mean you've achieved spiritual perfection. It means you've been **set apart for God**. God isn't merely rescuing you from something. He is setting you apart **for something**. ### You Are God's Workmanship > “For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works...” — Ephesians 2:10 Some translations use **workmanship**. I love that picture. You're not an accident God is trying to figure out what to do with. **You are His workmanship.** God is still shaping, correcting, healing, and transforming us, but there is intentionality in His work. Your purpose isn't something you have to manufacture so your life will matter. We get to discover how the person He created and redeemed us to be can serve Him faithfully. ### You Are a New Creation > “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” — 2 Corinthians 5:17 Your history is still part of your story. Mine certainly is. I really did drop out of school. I really did struggle with insecurity. I really did build parts of my identity around things that couldn't sustain it. Following Jesus didn't rewrite those facts. **It changed which facts get to define me.** ## Who Gets Naming Rights? I sometimes think about that eighth-grade kid sitting at the skater table. He wanted what most of us want: to belong, to matter, to know who he was. I don't look back at him with embarrassment anymore. I understand him. He was trying to answer a question he didn't yet know how to ask: *Who am I?* For years, I allowed different things to answer it—friends, work, success, failure, my body, my insecurity, other people's opinions. Sometimes I still catch those voices trying to answer. But they don't have naming rights anymore. **My Creator does.** Maybe you've spent years calling yourself something God never called you: *Failure. Unwanted. Broken. Stupid. Unlovable. Not enough.* Or perhaps your labels sound more successful: *Executive. Athlete. Pastor. Mother. Provider. Graduate. Successful. Needed.* Those things may describe parts of your life. Some are wonderful gifts and important responsibilities. But they were never meant to carry the full weight of answering **who you are**. If you belong to Christ, Scripture gives you a deeper answer: **You are created in God's image. You are known. You are a son or daughter. You are an heir. You are chosen. You are redeemed. You are called a saint. You are part of a royal priesthood. You are God's workmanship. You are a new creation.** Discovering your identity doesn't begin by inventing a better version of yourself. It begins by identifying the lies you've agreed with, setting down the labels you've collected, and listening again to the One who knew you before anyone else did. Ask yourself: **What have I been allowing to tell me who I am?** Say those things out loud and name the lies you've believed. Then hold them against the truth of Scripture. They don't get naming rights over your life. **God does.** Then open Scripture and ask a better question: **God, who do You say I am?** You may discover that the identity you've been desperately trying to build is something God has been inviting you to receive all along. **And believing Him might just be your next step forward.** --- ### Join the Conversation We all carry labels. **What is one you've had to let go of—or one truth from Scripture you're learning to believe about who you are?** Share it in the comments below. --- ### Take Your Next Step Looking for more encouragement as you grow in your faith? Explore the **One Step Forward Resource Library**, where you'll find free and affordable Bible studies designed to help you draw closer to God and apply His Word to everyday life. [**Explore the Bible Studies & Resources**](https://www.takeonestepforward.org/resource-library/)