As I draft this article on the topic of “identity,” I am preparing for the ordination of a gentleman who was ordained a vocational deacon at 80 years old but whom we have discerned is indeed called to the order of priesthood at 86. I have also had no fewer than five conversations in the past few weeks with people who are recognizing a call on their lives in a new and exhilarating way. It seems that the Holy Spirit is moving like a spring wind through the Diocese of Brandon, and for that I am greatly pleased.
While my varied conversations have been as diverse as the people themselves, one common thread has woven them all together in my heart—identity. Each person has come to me with the desire and the very real need to dive deeper into the identity they feel they have been given by God. For some, this sense of who they are has always been a part of them. For others, it is an evolving and often surprising reality. For all it is a joyous, generous, exciting, and especially daunting journey they are beginning, as it should be.
In my role as bishop, I often feel like I have a dual identity in the lives of those who are discerning. It seems that I am both the narrator and the reader of an exciting and heroic epic story being written in real time. I find myself remembering my first readings of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. As a bishop, I have the privilege of seeing a seeker/discerner from a bird’s-eye view. I can anticipate what will happen next, and I am tempted to jump in and correct a path, help them to avoid a dangerous decision, or urge them to make a more difficult decision, but that is not my role. Instead, I am called to just walk alongside, celebrate or commiserate with them, granting them space and time to realize what God is leading them into.
I recognize that, like a narrator in a story, I do have a significant amount of influence on how the story might unfold, and yet, as much power as I might perceive I have, the truth is that God is the only One whose influence should truly be counted. Which leaves me the role of reader as I receive the unfolding story, not knowing what might happen, white-knuckling the parts I anticipate may not go well, and sitting forward in my seat as the story gets better and better. As I have the privilege of journeying beside those who are seeking their own God-given identity, I find that I am learning my own alongside them as well. And I am learning that discernment is a lifelong path into the identity God created for us long before we even were!
Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.” There is no conceivable way to speak about our true identity without first understanding and acknowledging that God was the One who created and gave us that identity. We can wax poetic on the experiences, influences, people we have encountered, which have seemingly pushed us down the path we are following, but as Christians, we must first, last, and always credit God for beginning our journey and nudging us along the way.
Whether we can realize it yet, we are each called to be lifelong discerners, seeking out the identity that reverberates the truth that God planted within us before we were even formed in the womb. Every child of God is called. We are called to fulfil an adventure, much like Frodo or Harry Potter, one that only we can fulfil.
In our search for our own true calling, in seeking out the identity that feels like home, there are always times and circumstances that tempt us to hand over some of the work to others. We might experience moments when we look at what is before us and cower at all that is to come. We may wish to skip the hard parts or delegate them to others who have more “natural ability” in that area.
So many times, I think back to Samwise Gamgee, Frodo’s companion in The Lord of the Rings, or Hermione and Ron from Harry Potter, and think of the numerous challenges when they volunteered to step in and do the deed, take the next hard step for Frodo or Harry. However, as with any true and relatable hero, both Frodo and Harry knew when it was their time to stand up and step out because the task at hand was for them to complete. Sure, there were plenty of situations in which Samwise, Hermione, or Ron got to step in and shine, but they were living into their own discernment and working out their own true paths when they did. They helped their unknowing hero friends choose when they had to move forward on their own, trusting they would have what they needed when they needed it.
Each one of us, as children of God, has our own moments when we are the proverbial Frodo or Harry. As we live into the knowledge that we were indeed chosen by God for a specific purpose before we were even a twinkle in our mother’s eye, we grow into our identity as seeker, discerner, listener for God’s direction. There are many times when the next steps are easy and obvious. There are more times than we may wish, though, when we discover that seeking God’s will and discerning what is next is not always easy or obvious. We may wish to just throw our lot in with the crowd that seems to walk the easy path, and yet we always seem to have a Samwise saying, “No, Master Frodo, I think not,” or a Hermione and Ron reminding us that the cross drawn upon our foreheads in baptism is that indelible reminder that our course has already been created for us. We can try to walk away, but we will always, in the end, come back to the true path.
The conversations I referred to earlier happened to be about discerning a call toward ordination to the diaconate or the priesthood. However, they could just as easily have been about seeking God’s wisdom for how God wants them to serve as teachers, parents, labourers, coaches, and on and on. When baptized Christians agree to begin the epic journey they are called by God to make, they, like Frodo and Harry, begin by simply beginning—taking one step and then another and another. They are seeking the identity God has carved out specifically and individually for them, which they will only discern and uncover as they live into the very identity they are seeking to understand.
In the passage from Jeremiah, God does not tell him that he will be better than anyone else. He doesn’t tell him the ins and outs of how he is to live his call to be a prophet to the nations. God simply tells him, “Do not be afraid … for I am with you to deliver you.”[1] God’s words to Jeremiah are so very much God’s words to each and every one of us. We are not to be afraid, for fear will stop us from moving into God’s plans for us. We are to trust that the identity God has envisioned for us will be our own and no one else’s. We will grow into that God-given identity as we step out in faith, fulfilling the plans God has for us.
We may not become as famous and renowned as the Frodos and Harry Potters of the stories. Yet, we will be as successful at doing what we have been called to do if we follow God’s voice, discern God’s will, and then step out with our own Samwise Gamgees and Hermiones and Rons at our sides to revel in the stories God is inviting us to write as we uncover our own identities.
[1] Jeremiah 1:8.
