CHAPTER 1
IDENTITY CRISIS
"Sow a thought, reap an act; Sow an act, reap an action;
Sow an action, reap a habit;
Sow a habit, reap a character;
Sow a character, reap a destiny."
—Emerson Ralph Waldo
The abuse in which you find yourself today all began with a thought! That thought started either with you or with someone else; and as the thought is given expression, an act or action is effected. From that singular thought, a whole character and destiny is built. It is all in a thought.
Have you wondered why pet names and nicknames stick longer than original names of musicians, wrestlers, celebrities? Names are important in making us.
What is in a Name?
A name is a reputation that somebody has or the opinion that people have about somebody or something, especially one that is known by a lot of people. Names are made from words. Words are formed through creative imaginations. The name you bear—either arbitrary or real—is your distinctive appellation or descriptive designation or title. From these definitions, a name can be
• given to a person (i.e, original names);
• earned (i.e., professionally, occupationally, behaviorally);
• positive or negative, depending on the type of character displayed by the individual;
• consciously or unconsciously assumed;
• used as identification or representation; and
• used to classify people or groups of people.
Life originates from God. The whole essence of man is from God. But as society began to increase, man started deviating from his ultimate source. With more cultures, races, tongues, tribes, people, and societies, man began to form a character different from God's own principle of true character formation.
When you accidentally dispel ants from a cube of sugar, they scatter in different directions. So have men formed a variety of ideologies about themselves, forgetting or deliberately ignoring their maker—by postulations and philosophies that have not even helped them.
Any character formed outside God's principles and established as rules for living is an abuse. Many live their whole lives without truly discovering who they really are. They take on the characters, feelings, and beliefs of people other than themselves. They do not even know who they are. They live by the dictates of friends, parents and society. They say, "I want to be free, I want to be myself, leave me alone," while in the real sense, they passionately desire to be a photocopy of another. They are bound by an abuse in their quest for freedom! The freedom to taste a glass of liquor has produced the world's finest alcoholics who litter our streets as men who are living dead. The freedom to experiment with sex has also produced and will yet produce the world's best sellers of prostitution, harlotry, whoredom, and professional womanizing.
Some people even face more severe identity crisis. They say, "I have tried to live a straight life, but perhaps this is who I am or what I am meant to be. This is who I am, and there's nothing you can do or say about it!"
There is a difference between your real identity and your arbitrary identity. The margin is thin. People form an opinion of themselves through their past—what they felt, what they read, what people said to them about who those people thought they were or what they watched others do.
An arbitrary identity is one based on mere opinion and not on a definite statute, while your true identity is based on who God says you are.
When you choose a path of life based on your past life of abuse and misuse and decide to perpetuate that, without an apparent rationale for your choice, you are living contrary to the divine plan for your life. You are created in the image of God and after his likeness to live a life of dominion over everything (negative thoughts, emotions, and habits). You are a unique creation. You are the crown of divine nomination, the pride of God's heart, adorned by angels, feared by the devil and the demons, and the apple of God's eye. You cannot afford to live less because you are too blessed.
The truth is the cure for any form of abuse. The truth has always stood right in front of you, as plain as anything could ever be. Knowing the truth and applying the truth is the key to your freedom. To deliberately reject the truth is to choose death when you have been offered life abundantly.
Agents of Abuse
If you have been abused, you need spiritual conviction as the foundation for a balanced life. Conviction is certainty, assurance, passion, and confidence about something. Convictions must be based on established truth—not error, assumptions, or abusive predispositions.
Convictions can be eroded by agents of abuse, which include doubts, duplicity, deception, deduction from the truth, departure from faith, etc.
Doubt is a feeling of uncertainty or disbelief of the truth. An abuse results from a hesitation to wholeheartedly accept the truth about yourself in relation to established statutes. This can result from a lack of knowledge of the truth or from uncertainty regarding the truth or the reality of it. Assumptions or inconclusive researches create doubts in the hearts of people about themselves.
Duplicity is a change of character or behavior to suit occasions or a standard of conduct that permits greater liberty to abuse another person. A life lived outside the standard of God's word is a permissive life, allowing all forms of corruption into the heart. Such a life is like being caught like a leaf in the wind looking for a place to turn. And when trapped in an abuse, it is pursued passionately.
Deception is a lie, a trick, or a dishonest action. One can be misled by falsehood. This could be a false thought, an act, information, a theory, or a postulation outside God's word. Deception is cheap, stressless, timely, and passionate. It is color coated to attract the love of the natural mind. When the heart begins to fall madly in love with error, an abuse is sure to be effected. Some things are pleasant to the flesh but deadly to the soul.
Delayed obedience is another agent of abuse. When people rationalize the truth, they only prove to disobey it. Partial obedience to God's word is not permitted. If you claim to do church and still believe you can live an abusive lifestyle, no matter how good it feels, you are as good as disobeying God's word flagrantly. Do not harden your heart.
Deduction from the truth—this comes in two ways (i.e., removing from the ultimate truth or adding to it). The ultimate truth is God's law. It is rather unfortunate that men choose to believe a lie that comes from ungodly academics, celebrities, philosophers, and psychologists who are struggling to be free from the errors they have propounded and are perpetuating and entangled in. It takes somebody deceived to become a deceiver.
The younger generation has clearly...
