Beloved

Raise your hand if you know the story of Helen of Troy.  She was the beautiful queen of Greece, captured by the prince of Troy.  A thousand ships set sail from Greece with the mission of bringing Helen back to her husband.  She was most definitely a woman pursued!

In their book, The Sacred Romance, Brent Curtis and John Eldredge use the story of Helen of Troy to illustrate the human desire to be noticed at all, let alone to be pursued.  As reflections of the Trinity, we humans have identity bestowed upon us through our relationships to others.  Just as God the Father could not be the Father without the presence of the Son (or vice versa), much (if not all) of our identity is drawn from the impact we have on “the others” on our lives.  And if we are living with a desire to be noticed or pursued, we will base our identities on the things that get us noticed.

For most of my life, my identity has been wrapped up in intelligence, performance (especially on stage), and Christian knowledge.  I learned early on that I could get noticed by being smart or by performing well on stage or having all the answers in Sunday School.  Since then, I’ve tried to keep those aspects of my identity alive while hiding anything that might change how others see me.  No wonder I can’t figure out what I want to be when I grow up; I still haven’t figured out what I truly am right now!  I’ve been learning just how much that way of living has affected me.  As Curtis & Eldredge point out, “You cannot have intimacy out of a false self.”  In other words, intimacy only come through honesty and vulnerability within relationships.  I will never experience intimacy if I know that the “person” you are loving is not really me.

What I’m learning, through this book and God’s Word, is that my true identity cannot be found in my relationships with other people.  God has created me, and He alone can show me who I am and who I am meant to be.  As the Hero of the story He is writing, God is in pursuit of His Beloved… ME!  That is my identity: “Fought Over, Captured and Rescued, Pursued” (The Sacred Romance, p. 95)  God desires my heart, and He is pursuing it with everything He has!  As I come to understand and truly know what that means, I will discover more and more of who I truly am, what I am truly called to be.  Maybe I’ll even start to figure out what I’m supposed to be when I grow up. 🙂

I pray that all of you might come to a new understanding of your identity as God defines it.  You belong to your love, and His desire is for you (Song of Solomon 7:10).