Identity
📖Daily Reading
Joshua 18-21
🎥 Video
Join me on my morning walk as we rise and shine together by walking through the Bible daily and learn a practical applicable coaching nugget from the ultimate life coach - our creator (whatever that means to you). No judgement zone here, all are welcome, we are all on a spiritual journey because we are after all spiritual beings having a human experience.
📝 Reflection
Joshua 18:7 The Levites have no portion among you, for the priesthood of the Lord is their heritage. And Gad and Reuben and half the tribe of Manasseh have received their inheritance beyond the Jordan eastward, which Moses the servant of the Lord gave them.”
Continuing on in the book of Joshua and the dividing or allotting of the land. We learn that the Levites do not get ownership of a piece of land or territory. Their allotment is serving God. They will be spread out and put into towns and given pasturelands within other tribal territories. The process of arriving in the promised land and dividing it and assigning boundaries and ownership fulfills a very important human need of identity.
Identity is so critical to our experience of life. It literally can make us or break us, if we let it. It can be affirming or confusing or even threatening. The concept of identity has been a struggle for me personally. When you meet someone what is one of the first questions you ask, if not the first? - “Where are you from?” - Part of my personal story and life experience was one of moving a lot as a child and also as an adult. So I have always struggled with feeling like an outsider, ‘the new kid’ etc.. I never know how to answer this question. 🤦♀️ Which has led me to feeling like something had gone ‘wrong’ with my life or me? Internalized this as part of my identity. Which has caused a lot of pain, confusion and all kinds of trouble.
When I say we moved a lot, it doesn’t mean just different houses in an area of a state. It was big cross country moves and many different towns and this started immediately after birth. Our home life was also fairly chaotic and unstable. I have always felt like a ‘foreigner in a strange land’ and a constant uneasy feeling that causes me to search for a place to be from, a home. Being from somewhere and a clear assignment helps people feel some sense of security in their identity- or at least I imagine it does. It is something I am still working out and on personally.
I believe this is part of my path in both of my current professional roles as a realtor and a coach. I can identity with the experiences so well and I understand others from so many levels and angles. I know what moving is like, I now what it is like to struggle with confusion and an unstable childhood and how that can carry over to maladaptive coping strategies and dysfunction in adulthood. I have been through a lot. I have done a lot of work to change and become physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually healthy and I still have a long way to go! I really try to be curious and be a student of myself and others and I am constantly growing and learning. I am now so passionate about sharing and helping others do the same.
I spent more time than I needed to in confusion because I was so afraid to take a look within and deal with so many of these things. The “let’s just stuff it down, put a smile on and ‘suck it up buttercup’ and do our best to really believe it is ‘all good’” (aka toxic positively) approach will only get you so far. If you want to live the life that God truly has designed for you and find your true identity - you can! You really can transform your identity and it is not nearly as scary as your brain tries to tell you it will be, and it is so worth having the courage to step out in faith and do the hard work! Life is an adventure for me now, I am so excited to wake up every morning! I would love to help you and help save you from spending more time in confusion - that is part of why we are rising and shining together! We can do it!
Anyway back to Joshua, as I was reflecting further on the Levites specifically I can also imagine that God didn’t want them to be land owners per say the way the other tribes were. That would be a distraction from what he wanted their true purpose and identity to be. They were the priesthood, their identity was to serve God and serve the the people of God on behalf of God. I find this so encouraging. It means God is intentional with our lives and our identities. I don’t need to be confused. My identity was not meant to be tied to a specific place, town or even state. I have been distracted by thinking it should be and there for thinking I have been missing out on something and struggling in confusion. My identity is found in whose I am not where I am from. This is an affirming way to understand my identity, vs. the confusion I have struggled with for years by looking at it from my human perspective. But evidently one that I have needed to go through to get to the truth.
We will continue to explore this tomorrow as we talk about the 2nd group mentioned in this verse The tribes of Gad, Reuben and half of the tribe of Manasseh.
✍🏼Daily Journal Prompt
Have you been distracted by parts of your identity ‘story’ and life experiences that has you focused on something about your life that is causing confusion?
📖Tomorrows Reading
Joshua 22
Coaching Opportunity
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