By Jesse Blaine | Project Director – Cambodia
Whether it’s a mixed up genius from south Boston, a green ogre with a Scottish accent (that’ll do donkey, that’ll do), or a girl who wants to become a vampire, we’re all drawn to stories about finding ourselves. Our identity, after all, is at the center of who we are. It’s how we define ourselves, and it has a great influence over how we live our lives. We end up living out our identities. After all, an ogre makes decisions like an ogre, and vampire thinks like a vampire.
That’s why there’s so much emphasis in the Bible about our identities. You might even say that the story of the Bible is about one big catastrophic identity crisis. We have exchanged our true identity for a counterfeit one. Instead of living in perfect relationship, we started breaking relationships. Instead of stewarding creation, we started exploiting it. Instead of living in perfect communion with God, we have become His enemies. The good news is that a big part of what Jesus came to do was to give us identity 2.0—children of God, a royal priesthood, ambassadors for God’s kingdom!
A huge part of our task at World Orphans is working with children whose identities have been really damaged. Not only do they have to deal with the same identity crisis we are all working through, but they have the added baggage of living with labels like “worthless” or “poor” or “orphan.” Imagine then, the impact it has when one of these precious children comes to understand that they are made in the image of God. Not only that, but that God designed them to be a special reflection of His light and glory in a dark and messy world. It’s what gets me up in the morning, how about you?