TRAPPSTR

You are not your flipping khakis

Posted on 03. Nov, 2009 by Brett in God

I saw a great tweet recently.

From @taylorbrooks, “You are not your job, you are not how much money you have in the bank, you’re not the car you drive, you are not your flipping khakis.”

And I agree. Yet most of us hitch our identity to what we have or what we do. When things are going great and we have what we need and people tell us we’re cool, we’re usually pretty good people. But when we lose all that stuff, we can fall apart pretty quickly. Human identity is frail like a stick.

I remember in the summer of 2006 when I got a brand new car. A big shiny black Tahoe. And I remember how I felt when I drove it home. Feeling so snug and secure, wrapped in my 2-ton cocoon of metal and paint and leather. Gone were the days of the rickety 91 Mitsubushi Galant! Gone were the days of the 96 Rodeo with its horn that sounded like the bell on Curious George’s bike! When I stopped at traffic lights, I looked around, breathed in the new car smell and realized…

I’ve arrived…

I belong. I’m one of them.

Well, 138,000 miles, 2 break-ins, 6 tickets, a handful of wrecks, and a lingering ridiculous monthly payment later I’m still insecure and still want to be one of them.

It didn’t work. Dangit.

If you boil down the story of most people, you’ll find an insecure person trying like crazy to create a world that tells him he’s okay.

This is the beauty of the Gospel, the beauty of grace. Jesus became the “okay” for us, and then commissioned Paul to remind us to stop trying (see the entire book of Galatians). Jesus takes the trying and chokes it. He takes the striving and stifles it. He takes the struggling for significance and cups His hand over its mouth. He takes our frail identity and gives us a new one. Though we keep forgetting and continually need reminding, the truth remains.

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” – 2 Cor 12:9

(Also, thanks to TRAPPSTR reader Steve who pointed out that the original tweet is a variation of a quote from Fight Club.)