Not my identity

An employee who is also a military reservist had a payroll snafu when called into active duty.  Prior to and during employment, he had several negative experiences — living conditions, spiritual life, work life.  He must be thankful that his identity is not entirely enveloped in his work.

Offices never seemed to communicate in order to get another worker’s job title correct.  He was hired as one thing, listed as another, and treated as another.  Later, his job changed, and so did his title, but listings never seemed to be updated.  His real identity transcended both his de facto and de jure job functions, as well as his title.

Workplace-related scenarios can play with one’s psyche, but the more quickly and decisively we can put them in perspective, the better we fare.  Our identities are not entirely wrapped up in the work we do.  Consider the business card below, which once described my own work and job title:

Yet the job title shown on this old business card — “Coordinator, Internal Technology Consulting” at the later-thrice-gobbled-up CoreStates Bank, NA — was not in itself a description of my identity.  Nor was my identity wrapped up in any other jobs I have held, including newspaper delivery boy, cartboy/bagboy at a grocery store, lawn mower, custodian, cookware salesman, loan adjustor, and software trainer.  Although work’s worth and meaning are undisputed, a person is something different, something more than his or her job.

In fact, in Jesus Christ, one’s identity transcends anything that may be physically perceived.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!  

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:  

that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ,

not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 

2Cor 5:16-19, NIV