Who Am I?: God's Restoration of Our Lost Identity

By Penny Wiser White

God called me into the ministry of inner healing decades ago and from that came a passion to see people set free in Jesus Christ like I was. One of the most troubling concerns in my thirty-five years of pastoral lay ministry has been the issue of identity in both men and women. Most Christians do not know who they are in Christ to one degree or another. We all wear false labels or identities which can lead to a lot of confusion, loneliness, anxiety, failure, insecurity, depression, and fear, with a ripple effect that goes into our families and all interpersonal areas of our lives. Add to that once Satan can take the child of God down in the area of our image, he wins as we become isolated, depressed, ineffectual in life, and ultimately hopeless that we'll never change, or our circumstances will never change. This false identity also hinders us from putting the past sins, hurts, and deprivations behind us. And since insecurity and fear are at the top of the list for most of us, it leaves us not trusting in the One who created us in his image, in his likeness-to have purpose, to serve, to love and be loved, and to share in the abundant life the Father promised his children. The Bible says in John 8:32, "So if the Son sets you free, you will be freed indeed." But it takes identifying what the false labels/identity is, then removing those labels and walking in the fullness of who our Lord always meant for each of us to be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098017262

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Who Am I?

God’s Restoration of Our Lost Identity

Penny Wiser White

ISBN 978-1-0980-1725-5 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-0980-1726-2 (digital)

Copyright © 2020 by Penny Wiser White

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Preface

Part I - What Is This Thing Called False Identity?

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Part II - What Does It Look Like in My Life?

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Part III - The Good News: How to Get Back to Who God Meant Me to Be

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Acknowledgments

Notes

Note To Counselors

To my children, Jeffrey and Debra, as you have enriched my life beyond words

Preface

This is the first book I have ever written and may be my only book, but it was one I had to write. Years ago, I had received in-depth inner healing, changing my life in a significant way. However, identity issues were not part of the counseling I received. I had worn many false labels and had an extremely low opinion of myself, even though I was a Christian with a personal relationship with Jesus. I could not get beyond the hurts and deprivations in my past in the area of my identity. I still felt shame, was passive, shy, withdrawn, and was not regarded by others in a respectful way, no matter what I did to gain approval. I had become a people pleaser. I remember growing up thinking if I just do this for my parents or accomplish that, they would love me, but the feelings of loneliness and emptiness followed me. I tried to earn everyone’s favor and became very performance driven.

But years later, my heavenly Father sovereignly imparted this principle to me and then took me through identity healing Himself, which is amazing to think about. On a special day, I had a divine appointment with the Lord. Though I had seen it many times as I entered my bedroom, I happened to glance at the framed quote on the wall from Corrie ten Boom (she was a Dutch Christian woman, who, with her family helped save many Jewish lives during the holocaust, and became a concentration survivor in the midforties). The quote read as follows:

When your eyes are on the world you are oppressed

When your eyes are on yourself, you are depressed

When your eyes are on Christ, you are at rest.

The line when your eyes are on yourself, you are depressed hit me, and as I rounded the corner to a full-length mirror and saw myself, I burst into tears. I cried as the Lord broke all the shame, sadness, and pain off me supernaturally. What grace, what mercy, what gentleness in the way in which He took the false labels off and cleansed me of the bad fruit that went with my false image. Were those labels how I truly saw myself? Yes, but they were not how God saw me. My Father saw me through His Son Jesus Christ, but I didn’t feel or know that truth until that moment. The Lord broke me and transformed me in an instant.

Then after the sanctifying work He did in me, I became free from self-pity, self-centeredness, a victim mentality, sadness, guilt, shame, shyness, insecurity, and a sense of inferiority. I also was no longer teased, maligned, or disrespected but rather regarded, honored, and given a voice by the Lord. Instead He filled me with freedom, peace, and joy.

As I introduced it in my lay-counseling ministry, it became very apparent to me that this had to be shared as the cases I worked with were so vast in God’s transforming of people’s images that I had to share it in written form to reach many more than just the individuals I was seeing in counseling.

A passion developed in me to help others be free like I was and to be the people God meant all His children to be all along. So it was the Lord who taught me what you are about to read in the next few chapters. Some of the material has come from the many books I have read over the years and some from the training I have received. Yes, much of it has been written and talked about but not in the fullness of taking a person through the identification of the false image and the process of getting rid of a false identity. So this book contains how to recognize these labels and the process of getting rid of this false identity. How can we be effective for the kingdom, when we are walking around not knowing who we are in Christ and not standing on that solid rock of His Foundation, able to stand in times of trouble, sorrow, and life’s many challenges? How is our light going to shine if we are downcast, depressed, isolated, dejected, oppressed, and on and on?

I like the way a preacher phrased it in a recent teaching about the problems and the hurts we face.

Name it

Grieve it

Leave it

However, as I had been in the ministry of inner healing for over three decades, the identity issue was the piece that was missing. So the Lord began to teach me the principles about identity and then gave me the scriptures to back it up, which at the time seemed as though the order was in reverse, but that is the unique way He dealt with teaching me new things in this work. As a lay counselor, I had to help people name it, grieve it, leave it and so the heart of this ministry was on identity. I realized how many Christians didn’t know who they were in their walk with Christ or who had so many false ideas of themselves or were too focused on self because they were trying to figure out who they were. Add to that, so many were depressed because of the unease they felt about themselves, their jobs, their relationships, their goals, and generally their anxiety about this thing called LIFE. And since insecurity reigns supreme in most of us to one degree or another, it leaves us fearful and not trusting in the One who created us in His image, in His likeness to have purpose, to serve, to love, to share in the abundant life he promised His children.

Part I

What Is This Thing Called False Identity?

Chapter 1

Discovering the Awful Truth about Our Lack of Identity in Christ

Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.

—Ephesians 5:11

Why such a troubling book titled Who Am I? In my thirty-five years of ministry in inner healing, that has been the most resounding theme from men and women of all ages. It is not a casual question either as it goes very deep in the heart of a Christian. But it is the deepest and most profound question we can ask—who am I? If it is even thought about or said, it is not fully understood when spoken or asked. I don’t know who I am is also not a question or statement that is easily said by any of us. This is one of those human questions and conditions that can be suppressed or repressed as it can be too painful to look at. It is often only in a safe place with a counselor, that it can even be uttered. After my own personal journey with inner healing for four months, followed by years of comprehensive study and more than three decades of working with over 400 women and several men in ministry, I came to the conclusion that this is a very troubling, deep cry of the heart.

Several years ago, I was asked to speak at a conference in South Carolina. No one knew me and I had never spoken in a venue like that. There was a main speaker, and then five of us were to do a breakout talk in between sessions. I presented the topic of False Identity and the attendance was at full capacity. I later discovered that in all their years of retreats and seminars, they had never had such a large group for a breakout session. It was clear to me that it was because the topic drew so many to the class. I spoke for almost two hours and the group wanted me to continue, but our time was limited by the schedule. This did and did not surprise me as it showed me the yearning from Christian men and women to know who they are in Christ.

Halfway into my years of ministry, the Lord prompted me to explore the work of our identity in Christ, or lack thereof. It was daunting, surprising, and very disturbing. Even though I had had intensive inner healing, this aspect of my life was never dealt with. I, too, continued to battle this falseness in who I was, with erroneous labels that hindered my growth in Christ as well as limiting my effectiveness as a lay pastoral minister.

Today I am still stunned to hear the same theme but in different phrases of I don’t know who I am, I’m lost and don’t know my true identity, I feel invisible and can’t find my way, I want to know who I am, and I don’t, I’ve been a Christian for several years and I still don’t know who I am, and many more with the same theme of "who am I?"

What is particularly disturbing is that I am seeing more twenty- and thirty-year-old women than ever before, and that resounding theme of their identity is their reason for coming for help. This was not as common in the past, so I looked to see what was contributing to this frequent cry of the heart. I believe there is more self-awareness today, which can be positive as women are trying to become who they are meant to be and live in the fullness of their potential. But greater self-awareness can also be negative because we live in a very self-centered, self-focused culture of it’s all about me. So the answer will not come easily. What is good about this quest is their honesty and coming for help while they are young, before marriage and children.

The men and women I saw in the forty to seventy age brackets were already bound up in such a deep way to their strongholds of defeat, hopelessness, despair, fear, insecurity, and a sense of inferiority. And after too many years of this kind of thinking and acting, these behavioral manifestations became deeply rooted in their self-image and would play out in the form of alcohol, affairs, drugs, eating disorders, and many other strongholds.

In seeking some kind of relief to dull the pain, they would look to something or someone else to feel better rather than to look inward. No way out and a subconscious belief and self-declaration that this is who I am and who I have become and there is no changing it. Then add to the mix that Satan, also called the father of lies, would reinforce those falsehoods, and you have a recipe for bondage of the worst kind—the perfect storm.

Chapter 2

What Is a False Identity and What Does It Have to Do with Me?

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

—Psalm 139:23–24

Once we become a born-again believer, our identity should be fixed IN HIM as a child of God, made in the image of Jesus Christ. What then becomes necessary and vital, is to be discipled in the faith and to come to know who we are as children of the Most High God. But many of us were not discipled. We attended church, went to Bible studies, signed up for a conference, and grew in many ways in our walk. But unless we are grounded in who we are in Christ, our identity is up for grabs. Ultimately, we can be defined by the world in the form of friends, school, a spouse, a job, and a career path, what we can make with our hands, our ministry, and our home life. Each of those aspects of life will ebb and flow, disappoint us at times, not be all that we expected it to be, and eventually turn on us.

For example, if a man is defined by his job as an account executive in a reputable firm, with the company for twenty years, then suddenly loses his job, his identity can take a nosedive, especially if he cannot find a job. He feels bereft, hopeless, less than, and ultimately a failure. Who says so? He has drawn from his own well of who he thinks he is, and without that job, he feels like a nobody. He was defined by the job, the title, the job description, his clients, his peers, and the daily routine of going to work five days a week—that was his life. And add to that, his identity as a provider for his family is now in question as well.

But if our heavenly Father has defined who we are and we walk in that image, then what has happened to him is that he lost his job (hugely significant), but not lost who he is or what