Back to Center by Lisa Burkhardt Worley

It doesn’t matter what age we are. We can all struggle with our identity. On a trip to Israel in 2014, I clearly heard the Holy Spirit say, “Your Jewish father died, but your Jewish roots never died.” These words initiated a directional change that led to moving to a new church, one that honored the Jewish roots of the faith, more studies in Jewish thought, a return to school with an emphasis on Messianic Jewish studies, and now, producing documentaries to fight antisemitism.

However, after my recent two weeks at an antisemitism institute at the University of Oxford, I’ve been hearing the words that Eve heard in the garden: “Did God really say?…” The enemy of our souls is placing doubt in my mind about my identity, and I’ve asked God to reconfirm His words from 2014.

This happens to all of us. There are times when our identity is challenged by that pesky serpent. He tries to steal away the identity given to us as a child of God. He reminds us of past sin. He points out our flaws. He tells us we are not loved, when in reality all are lies. We must come back to center—where truth and the lover of our souls, the LORD, reigns. We have to return to the truth found in the Word of God that says who we are, and who we were created to be. Here are some truths to remember:

We are loved. 1 John 3:1 says, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him” (NIV).

We are beautiful. “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago” (Ephesians 2:10, NLT).

Our past is forgotten. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17, ESV).

We’ve received a makeover from the inside out, and we should embrace our new identity when we submit our lives to almighty God. For myself and my dilemma, I know I have to go back to center and, no matter what anyone else says, I need to always remember that day in December 2014 when the LORD spoke to me about my heritage and identity. The Word says God does not lie (Numbers 23:19), so when He speaks clearly to us, we should trust what is said. We must align with God’s thoughts, thoughts that are not always in alignment with the thoughts of man.