When Linda and I were in Columbus we entered a store and saw this sign on the wall.
A person's identity is either given, hence to be discovered and grown into, or self-created, like an avatar in a video game. If someone fails to believe in a God who is their Creator, they will be left on their own to invent themselves. The implications of what you believe here will determine the life you live.
James Houston says:
“What we face in the world today is a self-achieved identity. As Christians, we believe in a given identity, not an achieved one. The Christian is found in Christ. The self-achieved identity is very fragile because we have to sustain it. Nobody else is going to sustain it for me when I have built it up myself. The result of this is a tendency toward narcissism, because there is a depleted sense of self. This is not what God ordained that we should have for an identity.”
(In Jamin Goggin and Kyle Strobel, The Way of the Dragon or the Way of the Lamb, p. 41)
