You need to know your identity in order to determine what you'll do. It won't work the other way around, because if what you do is taken away or you fail doing it, you'll feel like a nobody. "So where does my identity come from?" you ask. Not from your driver's licence, which is fortunate for most of us! Nor from your passport; that just shows where you've been. And it doesn't come from your school records - which is good, because many of us still battle the negative messages we got back then!

No, it comes from God; He gives it before He sends you on an assignment. Before Abram became great, God changed his name to Abraham, which means, "the father of many nations" (Genesis 17). Gideon was the least in his family. But when God commissioned him to build an army to defeat Midian, He changed Gideon's identity and gave him a new self-image: "The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valour" (Judges 6:12). What credentials!

Think about all the famous people you know - athletes, artists and speakers - when they can no longer do what they do, they get depressed: even suicidal. How about you - does your identity depend solely on what you do? If so, it's time to seek God's face and find out who you really are. God says, "I've called you by name: you are mine." That means when you can no longer do what you do, you'll still be who you are in God's eyes. What could be better?