Welcome to another episode of Struggling Well. And speaking of struggling and well, how are you?
I'm doing all right. I do know this as we talked about what we wanted to say on this episode was the whole idea of change and I don't know of anybody who likes change.
Oh, I adore change. I adore change. I we move a stick of furniture and I'm anxious. I can't breathe. I have a panic attack. I just I don't like change at all. I really don't.
I really don't think any of us do. And
why is that, you think?
because
I mean you're not Mr. Change yourself. I know that it brings into call many things but I think when you talk about big change life change things that can get brought to the surface are where your values are and where your identity is.
Um
like what kind of big changes are you talking about?
You know I look back to four close to now five years ago when we transitioned from pastoring a local church to starting our ministry. that was a huge change. And I think what for me what got called into question was my identity. I remember thinking to myself, I'm not even sure I'm allowed to call myself a pastor anymore because I'm not pastoring at church.
and probably brought back into focus for me that I put a whole lot of identity in that fact. My identity was wrapped up in the fact that I was a pastor of a church. and I think when those kinds of changes happen, I think about that when men retire.
Yeah.
man's been a banker all his life or he's been in sales all his life or he owned his own company and he was the owner and then he sells it or he retires and it changes and I think it can create all kinds of issues for people in the process of change.
I think too of parents when they're as their kids are growing and then they go off to college and I can remember each time one of our girls left for college I was like who am I now? I mean they're doing their own thing. they were following their own schedule. And then when they got married again, I had that crisis of identity like who am I to them now? Now I've got son-in-laws. Who am I to them? and then grandkids came along and I tried to still be a mother to my grandkids, but it was just hard. I didn't know where to land.
Yeah. And I think so what gets many times attacked in that is our identity, who we are, but then our value is also something that gets called into question.
And you know what has hit me in the last few years now that I'm in my twilight years, it feels like, you know how you go up the hill and then I'm doing the quick slide down. is as you get older, it feels like your value diminishes, like you're not as you know, you're not as sharp as you used to be and you may not be involved in things in ministry that you were involved in before because maybe you're expired. Yeah.
So, what how do we battle that? Because I can sit here and say I think we still have value, but those are realities that we all face. So, how do we how do you battle against that?
Well, this last the last few months I've been in a study that we've done the Gospel of John and I've read the Gospel of John a million times as most of you have. It's a very familiar go El but this time I made a conscious decision to take a deeper dive in my own personal preparation for Bible study. I'm not teaching I'm just facilitating a wonderful small group. But and one of the things that has come up and hit me is in Jesus the latter part of his ministry he's getting he's moving towards the cross and he's telling his disciples all these things that are going to happen. They don't get it yet but basically he's saying to them I've been with through all these years, get ready. There's going to be a big change. Right now, you have been identified as my followers, but pretty soon you're going to be scattered to the wind, and you're not going to know who you are. And so, he gives them example after example in the gospels of who they are because of him. And one of the passages that I love so much is in John 15 when he talks about being the true vine and he says that we are to abide in him. And we've all been we've all been taught about abiding. But I think in the last few months as I've just chewed over that and really wondered what that means is when I abide in the vine, then my identity is in the vine. I'm identified by where I live, where my heart lives. And when I abide in the vine, then there are things that happen as a result. And he says in John 15, I'm going to bear much fruit. So I think a lot of times we are choosing places to land our identity in our job, in our place in our family, in our friendships, in what we have, what we don't have, our success, whatever. And Jesus is telling his disciples as things are getting ready to blow up, he's saying to them, if you abide in me, that's your identity in me.
Yeah. And I think that's a u I mean it is a truth we all need to live by it gets drowned out many times by the things that are more currently present for us like family and job and other things. and we everything we have because of what Christ did for us,
right?
And I think sometimes for me I can ignore that or in my mind I ignore it and think that I brought something else to the table in the equation and therefore that becomes more important to me than what you just said which is I'm to abide in Christ. We're told in scripture we're a new creation in Christ. Everything is in Christ. Everything is through Christ. Everything is by Christ. And everything is for Christ. But I don't wake up every morning with that as the driving impetus for how I'm going to go about living my day. And yet the truth of the matter is it needs to be the solid driving impetus for how I go about living my day.
And when I think about it in my own life, I think about I don't even know how to put this. I feel like when I'm not identifying in Christ, I try to become different things. I try to find a purpose a plan for my life, my days in other things. And I'm kind of like a cork. We can act like this, like a cork on the ocean, just bobbing around trying to find something to attach to. and never attaching to anything. And again, I'm going to go back to the vine. There's the vine saying, "Abide in me and you're going to bear fruit. You're gonna you're going to experience my love. I'm going to nourish you. I'm going to do everything.", I always fear that I'm going to become this like milktoast Christian, this like, okay, I know Christ. I know a lot about him, but do I live him? That's the issue that keeps coming up to me.
Yeah. And it for those listening, it may sound to you like, well, we're just talking about spiritual pie in the sky type stuff. It's not practical. It's not real because you've got to live life here on this earth. And I think that's one of those places where the enemy loves to plant the seed of a lie in our minds that somehow this isn't real life. Real life is going out there, getting a job, raising a family, doing things and making happen, and that becomes your value. When the truth of the matter is if I have no value to anybody else, I have value to him.
Yeah.
And I need to see this not as some kind of Sunday school answer. I need to see this as real life.
Yeah.
And what it really means to live for him. as I am living in this world because we are in this world. We're just not to be of this world.
Yeah.
And that includes where we find our value.
Again, referring back to John, there's so many incredible messages in there, but one of the things that John 16 says is that Jesus responds to the disciples cuz again the change and who are they going to be now out in the world and he says all these things I'm saying to you to keep you from falling away and I believe that in our Christian experience while I may not rob a bank or you know commit adultery what are the ways that I am falling away because my circumstances have changed that people don't identify me the way I was nobody calls me the pastor's wife now they say oh this is Suzi she used to be married. Well, she's married to Jimmy, but she used to be a pastor's wife, like, okay, what am I now? And so, if my heart is not synced up with through the Holy Spirit with who Jesus is, I if the chances of me falling away and letting the changes of the world kind of suck me up are really really strong.
Yeah. So, our challenge to you this day, this week, is to solidly rest your value and your identity and who you are as a child of God, that you're his beloved son. You're his beloved daughter, and allow that to soak in regardless of the circumstances of your life that you may be walking through now, changes that have come that maybe have left you floundering. as Suzi said, like a cork bobbing on the water. being rooted to divine and find your identity and your value in him. Have a great day.