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MY NAME IS: ?
Today we will finish the Identity series.
This has been a fun series where we have studied “Identity” through the experiences of Jacob and his family.
They all faced varying degrees of an identity crisis at some point in their lives just like we face an identity crisis in our lives today.
This world demands us to put our best face forward, even if it is fake.
Jacob struggled with his identity his whole life.
He is known for being a deceiver.
His brother Esau didn’t see the importance of his identity and traded it for some magical fruit, beans.
Even through these struggles, God showed up to Jacob in the middle of nowhere and Jacob realized that even when he wasn’t aware of it, God was with him.
Later, Jacob’s wives would pour all of their energy into things that were important to them, but eventually they realized that God planned to bless them in ways they never even imagined.
Today we are going to talk about the decision we get to make about our identity.
When all of this life happens, who are we going to decide to be?
How do your circumstances define who you are?
I am calling today’s study “My Name Is (Blank)” because everything we encounter in this life tries to rename us, but in the end YOU are the final checkpoint to becoming something.
Who will you become?
If you are taking notes here is a way you could phrase it, and this is our key thought for today...
You may not be in control of your circumstances, but you are in control of what you name them.
If you are following along in your bibles, we are in Genesis 35 today.
As we close the story on Jacob, life only seems to get more difficult for him.
At least a couple of different times his sons put him in tough situations.
He will soon have to bury his favored wife and his father.
If you find yourself in a difficult situation, Jacob’s response to his situation could be exactly what God want’s you to hear today.
If you have ever found yourself in a situation that could dictate your destiny, realizing that you have the naming rights of that situation could make it something brand new.
On a personal level, today’s study may be a difficult one to face.
However, I think it’s important for us to take this simple lesson Jacob’s story teaches us and practice it in our complicated lives.
Exercise it when we are staring down our impossible situations.
But if the situation you face seems like it is out of your control and you are struggling with feelings such as severe depression and don’t know what to do, I would encourage you to find Christ centered professional help.
Someone who can help you work through that situation between you, that person, and God.
I am definitely not a psychologist, but what we will be talking about today could fall into a category psychologists call “Emotional Regulation”.
Emotional regulation is simply using healthy coping skills to manage and respond to an emotional experience.
Many times, we tend to do what is called “Upregulating” or “Downregulating” emotions.
With these reactions we will either let something get us worked up, or we will try to hold back our emotions (such as holding back tears to trick our minds into thinking we aren’t sad).
This isn’t always a bad thing, but what psychologists will typically suggest is meeting emotions where they are and use healthy coping skills and psych tricks to regulate emotions.
When it comes to something like overeating, the psychologists at Noom recommend 9 positive psych tricks to help regulate emotions.
I really don’t want to spend any time on this today, but I want to show you these in order to help us identify the way Jacob managed his bad situation yet didn’t allow it to define him.
In terms of healthy psychology, he allows it to be a part of who he is, but not determine who he would become.
Here are the 9 psych tricks Noom uses...
Label It
Act Opposite
Take Care
Acknowledge the Positives
Build Positive Experiences
Find Enjoyment
Distract Yourself
Reappraise What’s Happening
Communicate
1: Naming the emotion you are feeling can normalize what you feel and help with peace.
2: Taking the action that is opposite of your natural urge.
3: Proactively taking care of physical needs can help you think and act quickly.
4: Changing focus and learning to look on the bright side is important.
5: Think about what you can do to build a more positive experience while not ignoring the bad.
6: Doing something you enjoy on a regular basis is a great maintenance strategy.
7: When you are at the height of your emotions, a short distraction until you cool off can make a huge difference.
8: Thoughts are easier to change than feelings, but re-framing how you think can change how you feel.
9: If you aren’t talking about your feelings, you are probably suppressing them.
Even just talking to yourself is helpful.
Unfortunately, in this final story about Jacob we only get to see the reactions of 3 people.
Even so, in many ways their reactions resemble the psych tricks in this list.
As we read through this story, my challenge to you is to think about a time when things seemed to be going right for you.
Or at least they weren’t going wrong.
Maybe that thing you always wanted or always wanted to do was finally within reach.
Everything is going great when all of the sudden it is turned upside down.
Something you had always hoped for suddenly became something that would never be fulfilled.
Today we are going to explore
DECLARING IDENTITY AMID DESPAIR
When JOY becomes PAIN.
When SUCCESS becomes LOSS.
When COMFORT becomes GREAT DIFFICULTY.
Jacob and his family are heading home and they are expecting good things ahead.
Rachel wanted children more than anything.
So much so that she thought she would die if she never got pregnant.
Now finally she had Joseph and she was pregnant with the second.
When she began to give birth there was probably a sense of joy that God was blessing Rachel and Jacob.
But suddenly she begins to have great difficulty.
Verse 16...
Rachel prayed for this son for so long but she had no idea that it would cost her very life.
When happiness becomes despair, it is very easy to focus on the bad.
To let the circumstance consume our thoughts and emotions.
Rachel’s midwife gives us our first thought about how to face these situations and not let them control our identity.
She tells Rachel to acknowledge the positive, or...
RECOGNIZE THE GOOD
There are times in life when something is being born at the same time that something else is dying.
There is something new that God is breathing life into while allowing others to pass.
Nobody gets a pass on this one.
Nobody experiences only good all the time.
In those moments it is important to recognize the good that is being born out of the bad situation.
In my own life, some of my greatest strengths were born out of my greatest sorrow.
When you are facing a tough situation, it is possible that God wants you to see the positive and look to HIM for true strength, which He wants to cultivate in you.
During this difficult time Jacob chooses, not only to recognize the good, but to take it a step further and let his actions be the opposite of how he would probably react naturally.
He chooses to...
DECLARE THE BLESSING
Before Rachel dies she names her son after her pain.
She names him Ben-Oni, which means “my son of my sorrow”.
But Jacob refuses to see their son as a burden.
He chooses to see him as a blessing...
Rachel named him after her pain, but Jacob said, actually this boy is a blessing.
His name is Benjamin.
Benjamin means “son of my right hand.”
The right hand is the hand of blessing.
The father would use his right hand to bless the first born son.
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