Identity - Soul Searching -- Linda Bernson-Tang

“If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you.” Exodus 33:13

From the rearview mirror, I watched the building that housed my career, shrink. With each passing mile, I, too, seemed to be reducing in size. I had resigned from my job to be with my new baby and had backed out from my parking spot at work for the final time. Because I believed my identity came from my career, that was gone from the horizon as well.

Who am I and where did I go? These were questions I asked daily. I wondered whether Moses asked these questions after killing an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew slave and fleeing to Midian.

I kept asking, “Who am I Lord?” Instead my question needed to be, “Who are you?” Through daily time spent in God’s word, He began re-establishing my identity. My attitudes and habits changed. Convictions hit. Corrections occurred. “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord’.” The bar was set higher. My identity started to look more like God’s—my eyes focused on my gifts and blessings rather than my accomplishments at a job. I began to see the soul of Christ and search my own.

If my identity is dependent on my job, what happens when the job changes? If I’m out of a job, am I out of an identity? Not as God’s child. He changes us. We can be surprised when led to serve in an area we normally wouldn’t serve, exercise self-control when the tendency is to react, or smile at someone who wronged us instead of walking past.

My identity does not originate from a career, title nor parent, but from being God’s child. At the end of each day and for eternity, that’s the best identity one could have. Identity begins with God and develops through prayer and time in his word. Are you submitting to God daily? Do you look like Him?


Before becoming a full-time mother, Linda Bernson-Tang was assistant advertising and marketing director for KABC TalkRadio in Los Angeles and handled publicity for KLOS, ESPN and Radio Disney ABC owned stations. She is a freelance writer and author of a YA novel entitled, Picture Perfect. She lives in Thousand Oaks, CA with her husband, two daughters, and her God-based identity.