Finding My Identity In Him

First off I feel I need to share with everyone out there who I am really and introduce myself to everyone.

My name is Brenda Porter. I am a Child of a loving Heavenly Father and a child who has been redeemed through the blood of Christ.

I am also impatient, negative at times and learning to walk with my Lord. I am stubborn. I am human. I also am learning a new concept. By choosing to walk with my Lord, I must also learn to make my identity completely in Him. To become a new person. To become a person worthy of Him and in essence a new person with Him implanted completely on my soul and spirit.

For many of you I have invited to my new venture, I am identified solely by one thing....the show Survivor and being this huge fan of the show. A super fan and completely to me one dimensional. I have promoted that label for a few years and used to be so proud to say that about myself.

However I am learning to forge a new identity and it is totally and completely by choice and that is a new identity completely in Christ.

However learning to be this new creature has had it's pratfalls. I tend to be stubborn and a know it all. Something I am working on. It is a daily minute by minute effort though to completely change an old way into a new way. But I know that I can do so. For it is not me alone working on me but it is with Him I am working on this new creature with.

I am learning to take those clothes off of the old creature and to put on the clothes of the new creature. For it is no longer about me, but is all about Him and learning to praise and worship Him on a 24/7 basis.

I was born again last May when I decided to give everything completely over to Him. The only thing that became a drawback was my work schedule kept me from attending Church each Sunday morning and many Churches in my immediate area were not open on Sunday nights. When I would find a Church, it would either close their services or my transportation to it would cease. It was almost as if the Adversary was working even harder against me not to change and be a newfound creature in God.

The frustration to find a Church that I could attend was pretty much a depressor to me. I found myself pretty aggravated with my economic and work situation. I found myself by a certain point depressed and beginning to completely give up hope. I would read my e-newsletters I had subbed to online from various Christian websites. Thankfully those helped keep a glimmer of hope there.


Another drawback also for me was putting my time solely to Survivor as well. I was a blogger of the show for 3 seasons and would spend a large part of my time talking show or talking out on social sites about the show. Now I am still a fan just not putting so much effort into it as I used to because I will be honest Survivor was a 24/7 thought process to me for so long. It became my identity online. But in doing so I was beginning to lose track of what I should be doing, which was learning to grow with God and forge my own identity as His Child and make HIM foremost...before anything. Survivor fans..still love the show just not as obsessed with it. :)

I found my light growing dimmer as the frustrations piled up. I was allowing myself to become upset by all my irritations. Solo worker for my household on a slim income. Bills piling up, seeing most of the people I love being blessed with their dreams coming true or having better incomes than myself and just having more quality lives. I often felt as if things were never going to change. That was when I realized that for them to change, I would have to change. Plus change my way of thinking. It was then I realized that for so long I made it about me and about everything else but never about whom I was trying to serve. It had to be about Him. That is where my main identity should lie. Not in me but Him.

By last weekend I made a conscious choice and it was through that choice that I found myself beginning to make my way again solid. I realized I was going about this completely wrong. I was doing it as MY efforts. Not realizing it is His strength I need to rely on. I also realized it is all about choice. You can choose to be miserable or you can choose to live in peace and choose Him.


You can choose to awake first thing in the morning and say Holy Father, you are my Lord. You are my Desire, you will be my true trust and I trust you completely (Psalms 37:5) You can choose to be miserable and things stay as is or you can choose to give them to Him and wait.

Being an impatient sort I am not good at waiting for anything. So when I made the choice to put Him first and learn to rely on Him I found that I began to think differently. I found my mind becoming clearer as I was not allowing stress to become my master. I found a sense of liberating clarity and began to feel a lot pf peace beginning to replace what had once been a void brought on by the stress and depression.

Through the clarity I began to realize that my situation was not as bad as I was making it out to be. I realized God was still firmly in control of it all. But what was needed was a change in me and a change of my perceptions. I had to find an identity in Him and not in solely myself. It was not about me anymore but about Him and worshipping and committing myself completely to Him before anything.

It is about making a choice in moments of stress to look up and not look down. It is about learning His qualities and taking those onto who I am.

^"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness" (Galatians 5:22)

It is about victory not loss.

"But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Corinthians 15:57

To totally change your way of thinking is not an easy task. But if it is not involving God then it is an even harder task. It has to be a conscious effort to choose Him daily and to surrender all things to Him. To learn the art of patience and to rely and wait on Him.

I found that by continually doing so I am understanding this : that if he were to have given me everything at once before I chose to make this change, chances are I would not have appreciated it or would have had the gratitude I have now. I also realize that He has His purposes and that I need to trust He knows best. What I may desire or want now may not be the best thing for me. Remember He knows everything and knows what is best for us all. Even if we think we know better.

I am learning to grow in Him and to assume my identity in Him. For in the end it is all about Him now and what He desires for me as His child.

The day I chose Him, I was given a number for where I could call and place myself on a bus to be carried to a Church on Sunday nights. I will start this coming Sunday night.

I also found that my worst fears were not really as bad as I had imagined.

So now I am gonna focus on obtaining the fruits of the Spirit and will be working on patience as that is my weaker character flaw.

I will keep all of you updated on that and will share with you what I am learning and how I am growing in my faith. My goal is to be as close to Him as I can and to serve Him all I can. If my stories or testimonies help someone then it will be all worth it for me. As that is what I truly desire.

May God always bless each of you this day.

Brenda Porter