There are thieves among us. Identity theft is real. I’m not taking about the crime where a thief steals your personal information, such as your full name and social security number, to commit fraud. I am talking about the person who robs you of your self-esteem by constantly verbally tearing you down. If you tell a child that they are no good often enough they might believe it, and begin to act accordingly. Words have power. Our words have the power to create and to destroy.
More often than not, if we are called something whether good or bad we will begin to associate it with our identity. I remember when I was a child my younger brother would often get into trouble. He was always doing something that he shouldn’t have been doing and my mother would always call his name and tell him to stop. After a while, he thought stop was his middle name because he heard it so much. It became how he identified himself. When you hear someone being called stupid, ugly, and worthless or a loser, you are witnessing identity theft. They are robbing the person of that truth of who they really are.
In today’s society, we have been led to believe that our worth is dependent upon how many friends or followers we have, or how many likes we receive on social media. When did our value as a person become dependent upon social media? I remember when the senior high school class would vote to decide who would be most likely to succeed. Does that imply that the rest will not? We have a tendency to place labels on people. If someone is labeled the greatest, to draw a line of distinction they feel the need to label someone else the worst.
Sometimes we rob ourselves of our own true identity. Have you ever had someone give you a compliment and instead of saying thank you, you come up with excuses why the compliment isn’t true? Others try so hard to remain humble that they never want to see themselves as something special because they don’t want to appear arrogant. There is a difference between arrogance and confidence. I remember one speaker saying, “rrogance is thinking you are better than everyone else, and confidence is knowing that no one is better than you.” My point is we are all uniquely different with something great to give to the world.
The biggest identity thief is the devil himself. He puts lies in our heads on a daily basis. Telling us we are not loved, telling us that we will fail and telling us that we are no good. We listen to the lies and sometimes don’t even recognize who we are. None of it is true. Our true identity comes from God. We are made in His image, in His likeness and God said “We are good!”
About Writer
Aretha Tatum is the author of the award-winning book The Problem with Jesus and The Wonderful Counselor- My Sheep Hear My Voice. Follow her on social media to learn more about her.
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