I once asked a man how he would describe his identity, and he answered with one word: “Gay.” I did not quite know what to do with that answer. Not because his sexual orientation bothered me, it didn’t, but because I was not sure that it answered the question I thought I had asked. Perhaps he sensed my hesitation, because we began talking about what identity actually means. It turned into a delightful conversation, one of those unexpected discussions where neither person has prepared remarks and both are trying to discover the answer while speaking.

Eventually, he admitted that he did not really think “gay” was his identity either. He had simply assumed that it was the kind of answer I was looking for. That realization stayed with me. Somehow, our culture has trained us to answer the question “Who are you?” with a category. We reach for race, sex, sexual orientation, political affiliation, occupation, religion, nationality, or some other label because labels are convenient. They give us something definite to say. But I wonder whether they sometimes give us something definite at the expense of giving us something true.

We decided that sexual orientation was probably better understood as a trait than as an identity. A trait is a characteristic of a person. It may be significant. It may influence relationships, experiences, temptations, joys, fears, and the way someone moves through the world. But a trait is not necessarily the whole person, nor does it automatically explain what that person is for.

That may be an important distinction. Identity seems to tell us something about who we are at a foundational level. Traits tell us something about how we differ from one another. Vocation, or calling, may tell us how our identity is expressed through the life we are given to live. These categories overlap, of course, and I am not certain they can always be separated cleanly. Human beings are not filing cabinets. We do not fit neatly into labeled drawers. Perhaps we should become more comfortable with that messiness.

Everyone is human, but not every human is a carpenter. Both statements tell us something meaningful about a particular carpenter. One identifies the shared foundation; the other identifies a skill, role, or calling that differentiates that person from most other people. Neither statement is necessarily false, but neither says everything. A carpenter may also be a father, a neighbor, a musician, a veteran, a reluctant gardener, and the person everyone calls when a shelf collapses. Which of these is his identity? Perhaps the problem begins when we assume there must be only one answer.

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.” – C. S. Lewis

I suspect personal identity is far more complex and multifaceted than any single label can capture. We are not slogans, demographic categories, personality types, occupations, diagnoses, or political affiliations. Those things may describe genuine aspects of us, sometimes important ones, but they remain parts rather than the whole. Human beings stubbornly resist reduction. We overflow the boxes built to contain us, contradict the assumptions attached to our categories, and continually reveal dimensions that no checklist could anticipate. Reducing a person to one label may be convenient, but it is still reductionist nonsense, because every individual is a complicated mixture of relationships, experiences, loyalties, wounds, gifts, responsibilities, desires, and possibilities. Perhaps wisdom begins by accepting that complexity rather than trying to flatten it.

However, our current conversations about identity often seem to reduce people to labels. I understand why. Categories help us recognize patterns of experience, injustice, privilege, discrimination, and social belonging. They can help people find others who understand what they have endured. They can give language to realities that were previously ignored. I do not want to dismiss any of that.

Yet I wonder whether labels can also become breeding grounds for bias because they attempt to flatten a multidimensional person into a single category. It reminds me of Edwin Abbott Abbott’s Flatland, where beings confined to two dimensions struggle to comprehend realities beyond their limited plane. Human beings are not flat. We possess multiple dimensions, and many of those dimensions exist along spectrums rather than within rigid boxes. Once I place someone into one category, however, I may begin assuming that I know the rest of the story. I stop encountering the full person and begin interacting with my mental image of the group. The individual becomes a representative specimen, and the label starts carrying more weight than the complex human being standing before me.

You might say that intersectionality answers this concern by giving human complexity a name. In theory, it recognizes that people inhabit several overlapping social categories rather than only one. Yet I am not convinced it always escapes the reductionism it is meant to correct. As it is often used today, it can strengthen bias by interpreting nearly every relationship through power, privilege, dominance, and victimhood. Instead of beginning with the uniqueness of the person, it can begin with a grid of social categories and then assign meaning according to where that person falls within it. In one context, someone is privileged; in another, disadvantaged. In one relationship, an oppressor; in another, a victim. There may be genuine insights in that analysis, especially when examining patterns of injustice, but I wonder whether it still leaves the person flattened into a collection of group memberships. It may describe social position, but it does not necessarily explain the individual standing before us.

Perhaps that is why these discussions have always felt incomplete to me. Much of today’s identity language, including the way intersectionality is often applied, seems to turn inward toward the self: how I classify myself, how society classifies me, how I experience those classifications, and where I stand within systems of power. Those questions may reveal something important, but I wonder whether identity can be understood entirely by looking inward.

Do these categories tell us why a person exists, what gives that person’s life meaning, or what they are uniquely capable of contributing to others? They may help describe how the world has acted upon a person, but they do not necessarily tell us how that person is called to act within the world. Consider this: perhaps identity is not only inward-facing. Perhaps it also points outward.

A doctor may regard “healer” as an important part of their identity, but the word only makes sense because other people need healing. A teacher exists in relation to students. A protector exists in relation to those who need protection. A peacemaker exists because there is conflict to be reconciled. Even a rock star presupposes an audience, unless the star is performing alone in the garage, which may still be enjoyable.

This makes me wonder whether genuine identity is revealed, at least in part, through service, through the way we understand ourselves in relation to the greater whole of humanity. Perhaps our gifts and abilities are not merely possessions for our private benefit, but capacities entrusted to us for the good of others. What do you bring into the lives of those around you? What becomes possible because you are there? What wounds are healed, what burdens are carried, what ideas are clarified, what beauty is created, what dangers are confronted, or what people are brought together through your presence?

Perhaps another way to ask the question is this: Do I see myself as an isolated individual, or as a member of the human family with some part to play in the common good? My particular gifts, experiences, and abilities may help reveal that part—what we might call vocation, calling, or simply service to others. Whatever name we give it, it cannot be entirely inward-facing or directed only toward my own fulfillment. A meaningful identity should not exclude the good of others. It should connect who I am with what I am able to contribute, allowing my life to become one small but necessary part of something larger than myself.

I recently wrote about Moana discovering that she is a wayfinder. That identity does not merely describe a private interest or mean that she happens to enjoy boats. A wayfinder braves the sea, recovers knowledge that others have forgotten, and creates pathways between communities that might otherwise remain isolated. Her identity moves outward. It places her gifts in service to her people and gives her a necessary role within the larger life of the community. On an even broader level, it suggests that a meaningful identity is not only about discovering who we are for ourselves, but also about recognizing how our particular gifts allow us to contribute to the good of humanity.

That brings me back to the conversation with my friend. I am still not sure how being gay, straight, or bisexual functions in the same outward-facing way. Sexual orientation certainly shapes a person’s relationships and may influence how they experience the world, but does it tell us what that person contributes to the world? Would we call it a vocation or a calling? Does it reveal the purpose for which that person was created? I wonder whether we sometimes ask traits to carry more existential weight than they can bear. We take one real and meaningful part of ourselves and expect it to explain the whole person.

That does not mean the trait is unreal or unimportant. It means the person is more. None of us floats through empty space, disconnected from other people, our communities, or even the environment that sustains us. We are not self-contained planets orbiting only ourselves. We exist within networks of relationships, obligations, dependencies, and shared life. Whatever identity means, it must somehow account for both our uniqueness and our belonging, for the particular person we are and the larger human and created world of which we are a part.

Nor is sexual orientation unique in this respect. The same question could be asked of political affiliation, race, profession, disability, personality type, or almost any other category we use to describe ourselves. These things may shape us profoundly and help explain how we experience the world. They may influence our relationships, opportunities, struggles, and perspectives. Yet I wonder whether any one of them, by itself, can bear the full weight of identity. Each may tell us something true about the person, but none necessarily tells us the whole truth of who that person is or what they are called to contribute.

Another thought occurs to me as I write this. So far, I have been considering identities that may be real but incomplete, labels that describe something about us without describing the whole person. But there is a darker possibility. What happens when the identity we accept is not merely partial, but false?

People do not always define themselves with flattering words. Sometimes the labels we carry are saturated with fear, guilt, and shame: I am a failure. I am unworthy. I am unwanted. I am broken. I am dangerous. I am stupid. I ruin everything. No one could truly love me. These are more than descriptions of a difficult moment. They become judgments about the whole self.

Such beliefs may grow from real failures, painful relationships, abuse, rejection, addiction, humiliation, or years of hearing someone else define us inaccurately. Yet somewhere along the way, an experience can become a verdict. Something we did, something done to us, or something we endured becomes something we believe we are.

I wonder how much destructive behavior is really an attempt to escape one of these false identities. Perhaps the person is not merely chasing pleasure or acting irrationally. Perhaps they are trying, however unsuccessfully, to silence the voice that tells them they are worthless, unlovable, or beyond redemption.

Why does someone use drugs, alcohol, reckless thrills, compulsive entertainment, or any of the countless things we stuff into our lives to avoid being alone with ourselves? There is rarely only one answer. Biology, trauma, social environment, pain, habit, and addiction may all be involved. But I wonder whether some people are also trying to escape an identity they have come to believe about themselves. A voice in the mind keeps repeating: You are worthless. You are unworthy. You are nothing but a sinner. You are a burden on your family. You ruin everything. No one would want the real you. For a few hours, the substance, thrill, or distraction quiets that voice. The relief is real, even when it is temporary.

The tragedy is that the chosen escape often reinforces the very identity the person was trying to silence, creating what we might call a downward spiral of negative identity. They drink because they believe they are a failure, then feel like a greater failure because they drank. They use because they feel ashamed, then carry even more shame because they used. Each attempt to escape becomes additional evidence for the condemning voice: See, this proves what you are. The false identity creates the need to escape, the escape produces more guilt and shame, and that guilt and shame drive the person deeper into the false identity.

You might object that perhaps these labels really are the person’s identity, only expressed negatively. After all, this is what they do. They are a drug addict, an alcoholic, a criminal, or a failure. Many of these behaviors are also associated with sin, and sin is often described as “missing the mark.” In one sense, that language seems to fit. Addiction, self-destruction, and criminal behavior can represent a life that has fallen far short of what the person might have become.

Yet I have increasingly come to think of sin as something more than breaking a rule, and perhaps even as a deeper way of missing the mark. Sin certainly includes disobedience, but it may also be understood as settling for less than what our Creator intends for us. It is reaching into a dumpster for food while forgetting that we have a place at the King’s table. It is not merely violating an arbitrary regulation. It is living beneath our created purpose and accepting something smaller than the life God offers.

That is why I would not call “addict,” “criminal,” or “failure” a merely negative identity. I would call it a false identity. These labels may describe behavior, consequences, or a season of life, but they do not necessarily describe the deepest truth about the person. If we were created for more, then allowing our worst actions to define us permanently is another way of selling ourselves short. What we have done may be real, and the harm may need to be faced honestly, but our failures do not have the final authority to name us.

I am working with a veteran who has recently been released from jail. He is fighting his own demons, and some of them appear to be connected to the false identity he carries within himself. His past actions are real, and their consequences cannot simply be dismissed, but I do not believe his failures tell the whole truth about who he is. I wonder how differently a person might live if he began to believe that he was created for more than the worst thing he has done.

I realize that I can only speak this way within the context of a Creator who gives human life meaning and purpose. Without that foundation, we may still describe certain identities as destructive because they harm the individual, the family, or the larger community. Psychology and biology may also help explain why guilt, shame, and fear arise. Yet the deeper question remains: What mark has the person missed? What is the standard against which a life is being measured? Why do we sense not merely that something is painful or socially unhelpful, but that we have become less than we ought to be?

I am not trying to construct an argument for God here, and I recognize that others may explain these emotions differently. I am simply observing that the idea of a Creator gives this experience a particular coherence. If we were created for a purpose, then guilt, shame, and fear may signal that our lives have become misaligned with that purpose. They are not necessarily proof that we are worthless; they may be painful evidence that we were meant for something better. When our identity begins to align with the purpose for which we were created, perhaps we begin to find meaning, joy, and a way forward. When it does not, we may feel the dissonance, the tension between who we have become and who we were created to be.

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” – 1 John 3:1

A long time ago, I read Bob George’s study guide A Closer Look at Your Identity in Christ, and it gave me a helpful way to think about identity. Drawing from streams of Christian teaching associated with the Keswick tradition, George emphasized that the Christian’s foundational identity is that of a child of God. The point is not that we behave properly so that God will finally adopt us. We learn to live as God’s children because that is what we have already become in Christ. That understanding moves us from earning to receiving, from performance to relationship. We do not obey in order to convince the King to accept us. We begin to live differently because we are coming to understand that we already belong in the household.

There is something powerful in recognizing that identity. If I am a child of God, united with Christ and made a member of his body, then I am not ultimately defined by my successes, failures, appetites, fears, social status, employment, or the approval of other people. I first encountered that teaching in the 1990s, and it was deeply helpful to me both psychologically and spiritually. It gave me a firmer place to stand. Yet life happens, old wounds return, and the voices of shame and failure can grow loud again. If I do not remind myself of who I am, I can begin slipping back into that downward spiral of negative identity.

At the same time, I must admit that this understanding never gave me much direction. It helped answer the question, “Who am I?” at the most foundational level, but it did not fully answer, “What am I supposed to do with my life?” Knowing that I am a child of God may free me from self-hatred, and that is no small thing. But once I know that I belong to God, another question naturally follows: What kind of child has God created me to be, and how am I meant to live that identity in service to others?

Perhaps “child of God” is meant to be foundational rather than exhaustive. It tells me where I belong and establishes the ground beneath my feet, but it does not by itself describe the particular life I am called to build upon that foundation. Every Christian may share the same basic identity in Christ, yet each of us carries a different combination of gifts, experiences, responsibilities, relationships, and opportunities. The foundation matters enormously, and I am not interested in replacing it. But a foundation is meant to support something. The next question is what kind of life God intends each of us to build upon it.

I am not sure I fully understood how identity might connect with calling until recently, when I began reading Jamie Winship’s Living Fearless. Winship presents identity as something received from God rather than manufactured by the self. His question is not only, “What is true of every Christian?” but also, “What particular kind of person did God create you to be?” That opened another door for me. Perhaps identity includes both the foundational truth that I am a child of God and the more particular question of how that identity is expressed through my own gifts, responsibilities, and calling. In that sense, identity begins with belonging, but it may also lead us toward meaning and purpose.

David, for example, was a shepherd, poet, warrior, and king. He was also a child of God, but his calling was not generic. His combination of character, gifts, weaknesses, experiences, and responsibilities was particular to him. I can freely admit that I am not a shepherd, a king, or much of a poet. Trying to manufacture David’s identity for myself would not be faithfulness. It would be imitation without calling.

I am beginning to see Bob George and Jamie Winship as describing two dimensions of the same reality rather than competing ideas. George focuses on the believer’s shared and foundational identity: who every Christian is in Christ. Winship focuses on the more particular way that identity is expressed through an individual’s character, gifts, experiences, and calling. The two overlap, but they are looking at the question from different angles. George tells us where we belong; Winship invites us to consider what that belonging looks like in this particular life. One gives the foundation, the other helps us ask what is being built upon it. Taken together, they offer a fuller picture of identity, meaning, and purpose.

“We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works.” – Ephesians 2:10

What Winship calls identity might sometimes be seen by others as more accurately described as vocation or calling. Vocation comes from the Latin vocare, meaning “to call.” It suggests that our life is not merely a private project assembled from whatever materials happen to be fashionable. We are called toward something, and the call comes from beyond us.

That does not make the discovery easy. How do we know what God is calling us to be? We have to listen, but listening is rarely simple. We may hear our fears. We may hear our parents, teachers, critics, political tribes, social media feeds, or the expectations of our religious communities. We may mistake ambition for calling or insecurity for humility. We may also become so determined to discover one grand purpose that we overlook the good directly in front of us.

Still, I suspect there are clues. What gives your life meaning? What work brings a deep sense of fulfillment even when it is difficult? What do other people consistently seek from you? What injustice do you instinctively confront? What kind of suffering moves you toward action instead of retreat? What truth can you not stop studying? What gift do you find yourself giving away?

The answer may not be glamorous. Not every calling comes with a throne, a microphone, or a quest across the sea. Some people hold families together. Some preserve institutions. Some repair what others have broken. Some teach. Some protect. Some listen. Some create beauty in places where ugliness has become normal. Some bring order to chaos. Some remind the rest of us that there is still good in the world.

When Winship encouraged readers to think about identity in a single word, I struggled. I do not experience my calling as only one thing. The clearest description I could produce was teacher, protector, and intellectual, but I still wanted one word capable of holding those strands together. Eventually, I settled on “wizard.” It is admittedly playful, and I am not claiming supernatural powers or expecting an owl to deliver my mail. Still, the word seems to fit. A few people in my life have compared me to Gandalf or Obi-Wan Kenobi, figures who combine knowledge, guidance, protection, and a willingness to confront danger when necessary.

For me, a wizard is someone who seeks arcane knowledge, tries to understand the hidden structure of things, and then passes that knowledge along when it may help someone else. The word gathers together my desire to teach, protect, investigate, and make sense of difficult ideas. It is not a complete description of who I am, and I would not expect it to make sense for everyone. But perhaps that is part of the point. A personal identity word does not need to define the whole person with scientific precision. It only needs to help that person recognize the particular shape of their calling.

Winship describes his own identity with the phrase “militant peacemaker.” At first, that sounds contradictory, but perhaps the tension is precisely what gives the phrase its meaning. Peace is not always preserved through passivity. Sometimes it must be defended. Sometimes injustice must be confronted before reconciliation can become possible. A militant peacemaker is not an alternative to being a child of God; it is one possible expression of how a particular child of God has been called and equipped to serve. A true calling should move us outward toward service, responsibility, courage, sacrifice, and love. A manufactured identity, by contrast, often turns inward and demands constant performance, recognition, and applause.

That brings me back to the man who answered “gay.” Perhaps the best response was not to tell him that his answer was wrong. Perhaps it was to keep asking questions together. What does that word tell us about you? What does it leave unsaid? What gifts have you been given? Whom do you serve? What brings your life meaning? What false labels have been placed upon you? What name might God speak that is deeper than the names you have manufactured or inherited?

Perhaps identity is not something we create from nothing. Perhaps it is something we gradually discover, receive, test, and learn to inhabit. Perhaps it begins with belonging and then unfolds into calling. Perhaps we are children of God first, and from that foundation we become healers, builders, protectors, teachers, artists, wayfinders, peacemakers, and even the occasional wizard.

My goal is not to settle the question for you or tell you exactly how you must understand your identity. I hope instead to open the door to other possibilities, challenge some of the assumptions we often take for granted, and invite you to consider more deeply what identity means, where it comes from, and how it might shape the life you are called to live.

Reflection

I wonder whether that is the conversation we should be having with everyone, including ourselves.

• What labels have I allowed to define more of me than they should?
• Which parts of my identity are foundational, and which are merely traits, roles, or seasons of life?
• What false identity has grown out of my failures, wounds, shame, or fear?
• What would change if my worst action no longer had the authority to name me?
• Who am I in relation to God, and how does that reshape the way I see myself?
• What gifts, experiences, and abilities seem to point toward my particular calling?
• What becomes possible for others because I am present?
• How might my identity move outward in service rather than inward toward self-protection or recognition?
• Where am I living beneath what I may have been created to become?
• What one word or phrase might best describe the particular way I am called to serve God and others?

Excerpt

Identity may be more than a label, trait, or social category. Perhaps it begins with belonging, is distorted by shame, and becomes clearer through calling and service. This reflection invites us to ask not only who we are, but what we were created to contribute.

You cannot let your regrets consume you.