Identity: Becoming Who We Are – Part 2
Why the Places We Look for Life Wear Us Out?
I was back in Austin this week.
That sentence carries more weight than it probably should.
Austin is where I planted a church. Where I poured years of my life. Where much of my sense of calling, identity, and purpose took shape. It’s also—if I’m honest—a place that nearly broke me. Driving those roads again felt disorienting. Same familiar streets. Same tacos. Same barbeque. Same “Keep Austin Weird” vibe trying very hard not to become “Keep Austin Financially Solvent.”
But underneath all the nostalgia and weirdness was a realization I couldn’t shake:
I built more of my identity there than I should have.
In the work. In the outcomes. In the people. In the mission. In being needed. In being “the pastor.” And for a while, it felt solid. Like standing on sturdy ground. Until it didn’t.
Ever notice how the two places we most often look for identity… are also the two places that exhaust us the most?
Work and family.
The places we pour ourselves into. The places we quietly hope will tell us who we are. The places we expect—often unconsciously—to answer the question underneath all the others:
Am I okay? Do I matter? Am I… someone?
And yet those same places eventually begin to feel wobbly – like trying to stand on a branch.
Work that once felt meaningful starts feeling like pressure. Relationships that once felt life-giving begin to feel complicated, fragile, exhausting. The very places we run to for life begin resisting us.
Which is strange.
Unless, of course, it’s not strange at all.
So This Is Why It’s Hard
Genesis 3 tells the story we all know—even if we don’t realize we’re still living inside it. Adam and Eve reach for something that was never meant to be taken: life apart from God. Identity apart from dependence. The ability to define themselves instead of receiving themselves.
And when everything fractures, God speaks into the wreckage.
What we often call “the curse” isn’t random. It’s not divine overreaction. God is not in heaven thinking, You know what would really help here? Chronic emotional exhaustion.
No—this is far more precise than that. God names exactly where life will now feel hard.
To the woman, He speaks of pain in family and relational life. To the man, He speaks of toil in work and the ground itself resisting him.
At first glance, it feels harsh. Until you realize these are the exact places human beings instinctively go to construct identity apart from God.
Family.
Work.
It’s almost as if God is saying: The places you are most tempted to stand on for identity… will no longer hold your weight.
And believe it or not, that is mercy. Because God loves us too much to let us successfully build our lives on branches that cannot carry the human soul.
The Two Branches We Keep Climbing Onto
We don’t think of it this way, of course. We just feel it.
Some of us try to stand on relationships. Not just romantic ones. All of them. Especially family. Being needed. Being chosen. Being central in someone’s life. Being the one everyone relies on. The emotional hub. The steady one. The fixer. The wise one. The “if I disappear this whole thing falls apart” one.
Which—let’s be honest—can feel fantastic for about eleven minutes.
There is something deeply good there. Family matters. Love matters. Dependability matters. Scripture treats all of that as sacred. But somewhere along the way, we quietly begin asking family to do something it was never designed to do: hold the weight of our identity.
We start climbing farther and farther out onto branches that were only meant to bear fruit… and then act surprised when they begin creaking under the pressure of a full-grown human being trying to stand on them.
Jesus says it more bluntly than most of us would prefer:
“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”
(Matthew 10:37)
Gulp.
To be clear, Jesus is not anti-family. He invented the idea. What He is confronting is our tendency to turn family into a foundation instead of a gift. Because family was never meant to answer the question: Who am I?
That identity was always meant to be received from God—not constructed from human relationships. But we keep trying anyway. We try to build a self out of being admired by our kids. Needed by our spouse. Validated by our parents. Included by our people. Relied upon by everyone. And when that happens, love slowly mutates into pressure.
We don’t just love people anymore—we need them to stay okay so we can stay okay. Their approval starts feeling like oxygen. Their struggles begin threatening our stability. Their distance feels catastrophic. Their independence feels strangely offensive.
Which is why so many loving families feel tired all the time.
Everyone is trying to hold everyone else up while secretly hanging from the same shaky branch. And deep down, you can feel it swaying in the wind.
Others of us try to stand on work. Not just careers. Anything productive. Achievement. Competence. Impact. Being useful. Being effective. Being “the one who gets things done.” Ah yes. The American spiritual gift of productivity.
There is something deeply good here too. Work was God’s idea before the world broke. Creating things. Building things. Cultivating things. Bringing order from chaos. Working and keeping. All beautiful. All in the image of God.
But after the Fall, work became another branch we keep trying to turn into a foundation. So now we don’t merely work. We derive ourselves from work. The job becomes proof that we matter. Competence becomes righteousness. Achievement becomes reassurance. Exhaustion becomes virtue. And suddenly rest feels irresponsible. Sabbath feels vaguely threatening. Slowing down feels dangerous because movement was the only thing convincing us we were okay. Because when identity is constructed instead of received, we are never truly resting.
We are auditioning. Trying desperately to build a self sturdy enough to stand on.
But branches make terrible foundations. That’s the ache underneath so much of modern life. We keep climbing farther and farther out onto limbs that were never meant to hold us, hoping this time the branch will finally be strong enough. More success. More harmony. More control. More admiration. More usefulness.
And all the while, you can hear the wood creaking.
The Original Temptation
If you trace it back far enough, all of this leads to a single moment in a garden. The serpent doesn’t tempt Adam and Eve with obvious destruction. He offers them autonomy.
“You can be like God.”
(Genesis 3:5)
Not so much in power, but in independence. You can define yourself. Secure yourself. Construct yourself. Become someone on your own terms. And ever since, human beings have been trying to do exactly that.
We build identities out of relationships, work, reputation, competence, belonging, politics, parenting, ministry, appearance, intelligence—whatever branch happens to feel thick enough that day. And for a while, it may work until the branch starts moving.
Austin felt like that to me this week.
Austin is an interesting place because, in many ways, it has become a cultural pilgrimage site for self-construction. People move there to “be themselves.” To reinvent themselves. To finally live free from the expectations of wherever they came from. There is something genuinely beautiful in that impulse. Our culture rightly senses that human beings should not be crushed by shame, conformity, fear, or suffocating expectations. There is something good and deeply humane about wanting people to breathe a little. To create. To explore. To stop pretending.
And honestly? Some of that spirit is refreshing. But underneath all the “you do you” language is a deeper assumption our culture rarely questions: that the highest human calling is to create yourself. To look inward. Find yourself. Express yourself. Define yourself. Build yourself.
And while that sounds liberating, it also quietly turns identity into a never-ending construction project. Which means the burden of becoming someone eventually falls entirely on you.
You have to figure yourself out.
You have to secure yourself.
You have to justify yourself.
You have to keep the whole identity structure standing.
And if we’re honest, even the language of “being yourself” can become another branch we climb onto hoping it will finally hold our weight. Not identity received from God, but identity manufactured from within. Which is still, at its core, the old temptation from Eden: You can define yourself apart from dependence. You can become your own foundation. Your work. Your family.
But branches make terrible foundations—even trendy Austin branches hanging over artisanal coffee shops.
Austin felt like that to me this week. And I saw how much I used my work and my family and my city to create an identity that would make me matter. It was a place I once stood with confidence, but now it’s a reminder of how unstable that identity construction really was. Not because the work didn’t matter. Not because the people didn’t matter. Not because the city isn’t truly beautifully “weird”.
But because I had once asked those things to carry something they were never meant to hold.
Stepping Onto Something Solid
What if the exhaustion you feel in your work isn’t just about workload?
What if the tension you feel in relationships – in your family – isn’t just about difficult people?
What if the branches themselves groaning underneath your weight because they were never designed to hold your identity?
From the beginning, identity was never meant to be constructed. It was meant to be received. Adam did not wake up in the garden wondering whether he mattered. He woke up already known. Already named. Already loved. Already held inside relationship with God.
The Fall introduced the idea that identity is something we must achieve. The curse ensured that whatever we try to build it on… will eventually crack beneath us. But the story does not end there.
Because Jesus steps directly into the full weight of the curse. The resisting ground. The exhausting toil. The relational fracture. The thorns. All of it converges at the cross.
He does not merely show us a better way to live. He absorbs the cost of the way we have been living. So that something entirely new becomes possible. Not a better branch. A different foundation.
Dependence.
Not vague spirituality. Not passivity. But the daily act of stepping off everything that cannot hold you and placing your full weight on Christ instead. Trusting that you are already named. Already known. Already loved. Already held.
Before the work succeeds.
Before the relationship stabilizes.
Before the future resolves itself.
“This is my beloved son.”
“This is my beloved daughter.”
Identity received.
Not constructed.
Learning to Step Off
So here’s the question: Where does the branch feel shaky right now? Work? Family? Success? Control? Being needed? Being admired?
Instead of asking, How do I fix this?
What if you asked: What am I standing on?
And what would it look like—even in one small way—to step off? To stop asking work to tell you who you are. To stop asking family to secure your worth. To let good things remain good things… instead of turning them into gods.
Because the Christian life is not about finally finding a branch strong enough to hold you.
It is about discovering you were never meant to stand on branches in the first place.
You were meant to stand in Christ. And that is the first place that actually holds.