Shaken: Discovering Your True Identity in the Midst of Life's Storms

by Tim Tebow

How important it is not to allow either the highs or the lows in life dictate who you are.

I’m on a faith journey just like you are. Sometimes I get it right. Other days I struggle. But I know that when I’m settled in my identity, I live at my best.

When your world is shaken, when the plans and dreams you’ve created, perhaps even banked on, get obliterated, when the path on which you walk is moving in an unknown and a particularly unwanted direction, what do you do? Better yet, what do you hold on to? I knew in that moment, I had to hold on to truth. It was the only solid ground I had. I had to remember what God said. And I would have to do this over and over and over again. I brought to mind Bible verses that I was taught growing up and that I’ve held on to over the years, like Jeremiah 29:11: “ ‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.”

And Psalm 56:3: “When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You.”

God, I don’t know what’s happening, and I don’t have a clue what You are doing, but I believe You have me here for a reason. I believe You’ve got a plan. I know this is not the end of my story. I may not be ecstatic about what You have in mind, but I’m in this with You. Whatever happens, I’m in.

I made a conscious choice not to quit. Not to gripe. Not to pout. Not to let others define me. And not to live in disappointment or regret. Believe me when I tell you, I wanted to be angry! And I was tempted to stay in that place. But I had to go back to the place of trusting God.

I am a child of God. My foundation for who I am is grounded in my faith. In a God who loves me. In a God who gives me purpose. In a God who sees the big picture. In a God who always has a greater plan. Who am I? I am the object of His love.

His love is pure. It never fails. It is unconditional. It is eternal. It is not motivated by personal gain. He just loves because He is. It’s worth noting that “unconditional love does not mean that God loves everything we do, but rather His love is so intense that He loves every sinner, no matter how vile and despicable he or she may be in the eyes of humanity.”4

Because my identity is secure, I don’t have to ride the roller coaster of life. I don’t have to live up in the highs or down in the lows. No matter what happens I can live with confidence knowing I’m on a solid foundation.

And while I may get hurt, disappointed, or frustrated by the negative side of these equations, my foundation doesn’t have to change. Even if I wrestle with internal feelings, I can hold on to God’s truth. I can flow north again. I know He’s got a plan for me, even when I don’t know what it is or when it seems to look totally different than what I imagined.

God can do a lot with what we think is a little. How He can take something that can be described as “insignificant” or “not enough” or “small” or “meaningless” and use it to perform a miracle.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8–9)

Don’t worry about your skills or what you lack. Don’t worry about your past junk. Don’t worry about what you lost. Don’t worry about what lies ahead. Don’t worry about what didn’t happen or what did. Be rooted in God. And watch as He unfolds a plan that has more love, more meaning, and more purpose than you could ever possibly imagine.

What’s pressure? Another word for fear. It’s fear that tells us, You’re not good enough.

Fear can push or motivate you to do things, sometimes even good things, but it will never take you as far as love can take you.

My dad has countless stories of how fear could have easily overtaken him. But it didn’t. Why? Because his love for the people of the Philippines and, more importantly, his love for God were stronger than what he could have feared was possible.

Love is not a feeling; it’s a choice. It doesn’t say, “I love you because you will do x, y, or z for me.” The ultimate form of love is choosing the best interests of another regardless of how it affects us.

agape, my favorite definition of which is “unconditional love that is always giving and impossible to take or be a taker.

While I’m sure He was partly afraid of the physical torture that was coming, there was a greater fear. His crucifixion also meant separation from God. He would bear the entire weight of the world, of my sin and yours, on the cross.

And that meant that until His resurrection, His heavenly Father would turn His back on His Son. That perfect relationship would be severed. Physical torture is one thing,

but abandonment can hurt ...

So Jesus asked His Father if maybe, just maybe, there was another way. Yet He didn’t park on that thought for a long time. Jesus’s prayer quickly continued, and He ended His tear-filled plea with the following: “Yet not My will, but Yours be done.”

When you want to be the most powerful or the strongest, always choose love over fear. “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18).

How do you live in such a place of hope, love, trust? How do you keep from feeling so overwhelmed by fear that you shut down? How do you keep from letting the giants in life pummel you to the ground? How do you, in the face of mountains and adversaries, stay grounded? Faith.

“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”9

Feelings are normal. They can change on a dime. They come. And they go. We need to understand this and learn how to live above them, not by them. This means going deep, gaining knowledge about God by praying and reading His Word. Staying grounded in whose we are. And choosing to do what’s right.

But the more you make the choice to live above your feelings, to trust God instead of what you may feel like doing, the stronger your faith becomes. It’s not about being perfect. We will always be on a journey of growing closer to God. I can tell you that I’ve messed up before and I’ll mess up again. Chances are you will too.

but what gave David the courage was his deep faith. He lived it. While tasked with tending the sheep in the fields, he developed his relationship with God. And as a result of working his faith out, David was able to push aside his fears and crush every giant in his path—the lion, the bear, and Goliath.

I love what Jesus said in John 16:33: “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world” (NLT). What does it mean to take heart? Don’t give up. Be encouraged. Lift your spirits. And do this on purpose. With intention. Literally, take courage. Choose it. When you feel tired, discouraged, disappointed, or run down, make the choice to take heart.

What God knows about us is more important than what others think. In these moments, we need to go back to home base and remember whose we are.

We were created by Love, in love, and for love. When we so much as catch a glimpse of how much God loves us, it changes how we think of ourselves. We can withstand harsh criticism or hurtful words. We can be confident in who we are regardless of what others say.

When you work so hard to make others like you and make them happy, the criticism you receive hurts even more. The wounds run deeper. The cuts are sharper.

It might surprise you to know that some of the deepest wounds I’ve experienced have come from fellow Christians.

It is easy for me to remember times when others have hurt me with their criticism. It’s harder to mention times I’ve hurt others with my words.

When our self-worth crumbles, when we’re not feeling confident, when insecurities overwhelm us, we have to remember whose we are.

Martin Luther wrote, “This life is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness. It is not healthy, but healing; not being, but becoming; not rest, but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it. This is not the end, but it is the road.”

I tried to guard my heart, reminding myself that I wasn’t in control; God was. And it wasn’t my job to orchestrate or prompt or change His plan.

Why do bad things happen to us? Here’s what I know: we are broken people living in a fallen world. And because of our sin nature and free will, our freedom to make choices, our world bubbles over with addiction, illness, betrayal, crime, heartache, disappointment. Suffering exists. Remember Jesus’s words to always “take courage” or “take heart”? Why did He say this? Because “here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows.”8 He was warning us that this life isn’t going to be a cakewalk. And there will be times when it gets really, really hard.

And imagine if there were no God. Instead of there being a purpose in the pain, pain would be meaningless.

When we ask questions, when we doubt, when we wonder if God is going to pull through, or wonder why He didn’t pull through, or wonder why our miracle is taking so long, or why the miracle never came at all, remember that doubt is normal. God isn’t scared of your questions. Bring them to Him. It’s better to vent to Him than to run from Him.

I want to be clear that I’m talking about pain that’s given to Him. If we hold on to our hurts, our heartaches, our struggles, our losses and refuse to surrender them to Him, we become bitter. And we relinquish the opportunity for God to do something with it—whether it’s to mold our character, teach us something important, grow us in some way, or make a difference in the lives of others.

“Look, God, I’m really struggling right now. And I’m asking for help. Please work this out in some way, somehow, for good.”

“Acrid bitterness inevitably seeps into the lives of people who harbor grudges and suppress anger, and bitterness is always a poison. It keeps your pain alive instead of letting you deal with it and get beyond it.”15 Put more bluntly, “Bitterness is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”16

What ultimately matters is that my friends are loyal, have my best interests in mind, and love me without strings. I strive to be that type of friend to others.

True friendship is about trust, being vulnerable and sharing, not shutting down because of pride. It’s about enduring with them. Believing with them. Loving them. And encouraging them.

Sometimes we can get so caught up in this kind of mental funk that we forget that those around us are going through a hard time. Sometimes we just need, even for a minute, to stop. Step outside of ourselves. Pay attention to the world around us. And do something, no matter how small, to lighten someone’s load. It’s about perspective.

It’s amazing what happens when we help someone when we’re feeling helpless. This doesn’t have to be some big task or a save-the-world project.

Who’s in your circle of trust? It doesn’t have to be a big group of people. It works if you just have two or three people that you can trust, count on to pray for you, wrestle with you on big decisions, and offer wise advice.

It reminded me how we often miss what’s right in front of us. I speak at a lot of events, to crowds in the hundreds and thousands. I realize that I don’t see every single person who attends. But for some reason that day, I noticed this young lady in the masses. Just like I noticed Sherwin and his friends. I stopped signing photographs and made my way toward her. As I got close, her eyes lit up. And frankly, so did mine.

Being normal is safe. And easy. It doesn’t require much work or effort or change on our part. But it always leads to mediocrity. When we strive to be just like everyone else, we never have a chance to be special. When you start to embrace and even celebrate how special and different God made you, you can begin to do extraordinary things. You can begin to see yourself through His eyes. You can begin to live in the uniqueness with which you were created. You can be motivated and inspired to go against the grain.