no, really.
personally, i know my fingers have the website, my username and password ingrained into my muscle memory. i can't seem to keep working on one thing for more than an hour on a computer without being sucked into checking my facebook, hungrily searching for the red flag notifications. what's the deal with that?
social media fascinates me. there's probably several contributing factors to said fascination, but i think one element that intrigues me is the concept of virtual self. it's a rather captivating epitome of constructing, revising and saving face. the profile pictures, the interests, the status updates, all instruments functioning to project a desired image. i could make myself seem like a music junkie, a sports buff, an arts enthusiast, or an outdoors mountain man.
identity is a funny thing. i often find myself wondering what label or "type" of person i am. do the people i know think of me as the music guy? no, certainly not; plenty of other people are better at playing music than i. what about technology savvy? again, i can make a list of several others who would supersede me in that regard. rower? writer? presenter? athlete? am i defined by the things i do? it would seem much more fitting for my identity to bring about my actions, not vice versa.
an identity crisis, indeed.
i wonder how many of us, consciously or otherwise, get wrapped up in ourselves in this way. i feel most me when i'm _______. it's petrifying, really. because whatever holds that blank space at any given moment is also what holds me up, what buttresses my energy and motive. and should it (or the desired image that it constructs for me) ever fail, falter, waver, fall through, etc., i follow in the same fashion.
i wonder what God thinks of facebook. evangelical tool? waste of time? virtual substitute for His gift of community? i hold the belief that nothing in and of itself is pure evil. now what people do with any given thing (beer, sex, social media, and so on) may most certainly be tainted with such sinister motives, contexts and desires that it can be a natural association, such "money is evil," as opposed to the root of such a phenomenon. how much more dangerous, then, is a case like facebook, where there is no social stigma, but in stark contrast an enthusiastic embrace of virtually checking yourself in the mirror and soliciting mass response? it makes me a bit nervous, to say the least.
yet i buy into it. we all do, to some extent. we want people to like us, we want to be the right "type" of person. so what happens then, when the things we find identity in keep coming up short? leaving us dry? empty? reaching for something more?
...
i have four names. Tyler. Clifford. Scott. Hall. the first one was a gift from my mother, literally meaning "tile maker" (according to a random baby name book i saw at the checkout line at kroger once); the second comes from my grandfather--he didn't like his name much in life, so he insisted that all legal documentation holding my name have the abbreviation C. the third originated from an uncle i never knew as he died before i was born. finally, my surname sticks with my mother's side of the family.
i remember in middle school when, as i began attending confirmation classes, i tried to get the name jack to stick. i don't claim to have any more insight into the strange mind of an adolescent pre-teen boy than the next person, even having been one myself. however, i can only assume that my motive for the alias came from a desire to start over, to erase the miserable experiences of social isolation and degradation at school and ensure that i would not encounter the same with church friends. what's in a name? i suppose it depends on who's name, and who you're asking.
if you ask God, i would venture that it wouldn't be so much about the name, but the heart and soul behind the person behind the name. God Himself cannot be limited by a name, simply stating "I AM WHO I AM," and "This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation" (Gen. 3: 14-15). so there's two things with God's identity: 1) you can't define Him or comprehend all that He is (even the gendered pronoun is limiting), and 2) He doesn't change. He isn't about to change His name willy-nilly. HE IS WHO HE IS.
but here's the incomprehensible, fantastic, grace-gushing thing about God's nature: He doesn't just affirm His own identity, but the identity of His creation. that's me. that's you. He steps into the profile-amending, mask-toting chaos of life and exposes the beauty that is pure self: the way He created his child.
we see it all over scripture. it's inspiring, uplifting, monumental. when abram and sarai are on the lam, venturing into a foreign land, they are hesitant to trust the LORD at first. when their hearts are most vulnerable and open to God's will, He does something truly unique. He renames them. He doesn't just call them by new names, but actually bestows upon them new names, new identities, new selves. "No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham...as for your wife Sarai, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name" (Gen. 17: 5, 15). this shift in names brings about new habits, new attitudes and new faith in the couple ordained by God.
it happens with jacob. on the eve of a familial confrontation, jacob literally wrestles with some sort of physical manifestation of the Father and finds the faith to move forward. in sending him off, God declares "'Your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel.' So he named him Israel" (Gen. 35: 10).
and again with peter: in being called one of his disciples, "Jesus looked at him and said, 'So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas' (which means Peter)" (John 1:42).
and again with paul: after his encounter with God on the road to Demascus, the once-fierce Christian assailant turns to a life after the LORD as "then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit..." (Acts 13:9).
if we find our identity in the Father, He presents us with the life we're meant to live, under the name and the concept of self that gives us peace and enduring faith. the reason Jesus Christ came to this earth was to show the Father's love, "that they [we] might have abundant life" (John 10:10). i am convinced that abundant life, life to the full, includes knowing who we are despite our blemishes and allure towards depravity. He has the final word:
"Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith." (Hebrews 12:2)
The Finisher. the label comes from the Greek "teleiotes," completeness, perfection. it's gorgeous.
when we abide in Christ, when we find identity in his sacrifice and lean on the Father's promise--"that we should be called children of God, and so we are..." (1 John 3:1)--we are sanctified, growing more into the people God meant us to be.
one day, we will have perfection in our relationship with the Father, "being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1:6). i don't have to constantly worry about making a name for myself, trying to construct some lasting impression on those around me by what i can do or what i'm good or not good at.
when we recognize that we are named by the Father, we can find our identity in an all-powerful source of esteem, love and vocation. i know who i am when i embrace my status as a son of the Most High God.
"Fear not, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Living One. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades" (Revelation 1: 17-18). This is who i am claimed by. that is all i need to know.
facebook is fun and all, but at the end of the day you can keep your social media.
"I am the Finisher, and I live forever."
-Oh, Sleeper "The Finisher"
"Who do I belong to?
Unchanging.
Unbreaking.
Unfailing.
Creator.
Immortal.
Eternal."
-Project 86, "To Sand We Return"
