Your Greatest Battle

Have you ever wondered why, when making a purchase, we are often influenced to buy a product that has a particular logo on it?
Often people attempt to affiliate themselves with, and derive value from, a brand. We attempt to find our identity in something that we believe will grant us value and meaning—although the attempt always falls short.

We are all searching for the true self and identity that God has created and destined us to be.

But often we look for identity in logos rather than the Logos.

Why do so many men experience a midlife crisis?
They wake-up to the reality that they are not who they desire to be and therefore believe that they need to do something to determine or discover their own identity.

This may be the deepest, most fundamental challenge for every man: to know who he really is.

If you doubt that discovering, embracing, and living from one’s God-given identity is one of man’s greatest battles, consider Jesus Christ, who after His baptism was promptly led by the Holy Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the evil one.

What was the core content of our Lord’s temptation?

“If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread.
If you are the Son of God, throw yourself off the parapet of the temple.
If you are the Son of God, worship me and I will give you the nations.”

The evil one is questioning Jesus’ identity.
“Who are you really, Jesus? What is your identity?”
It is as if the evil one is saying, “Prove yourself.”

If Jesus fell prey to the temptation to prove that He is the Son of God, He would have betrayed His very identity, because God doesn’t have to prove anything—He is simply God.
Thus, by overcoming the temptation to prove His identity, Jesus proves that He is God the Son—the one who overcomes all temptation.

This narrative of Jesus’ battle to retain and proclaim His identity is threaded throughout the short story of Jesus’ earthly life, cul-minating at the foot of the cross, where the Pharisees, priests, and elders goad Jesus: “If you are the Son of God come down from that cross.”

Like the devil, they are saying essentially, “Prove your identity. Show us who you really are.”
In fact, during Jesus’ Passion, He is questioned three times regarding His identity. First in the garden, the cohort, led by Judas the betrayer, ask, “Which one of you is Jesus the Nazarene?”

Jesus responded, “I AM.” Jesus, in the face of immanent death, while confronting great opposition and intimidation, witnessed and testified to His human identity: I am fully man—I am Jesus of Nazareth.

Again, Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest, interrogated Jesus, asking Him, “Are you the Son of the Living God?”
To which Jesus responded, “I AM.”

Jesus confessed His divine identity, that He is fully God, God the Son—fully divine. And again, Pilate asked Jesus, “Are you a king?”
Jesus responded, “It is you who say I AM. My kingdom is not of this world.”
Jesus admits His sovereign identity as king and lord of mankind.

In the face of great intimidation, Jesus did not deny His identity as fully man, fully God, and Lord and King of all.
Jesus did not acquiesce, but rather stood his ground, battled, and courageously persevered to confess and maintain the truth of His identity.

Like his son, Jesus, St. Joseph was tempted regarding his vocational identity and mission.
Joseph was called to be the husband of Mary, and therefore the father of her child.
It was here, amidst the context of his fatherly vocational path, that Joseph experienced the tremendous temptation to reject his identity.

Your marriage will have trials and tests.
Your fatherhood will be blasted by challenges and crises.
The world will constantly goad you to prove yourself and thus deny your divine sonship and your dependence upon God the Father for your identity.

As with Jesus and Joseph, the evil one will work tirelessly, using the forces and powers of this world to intimidate you; to tempt you to hide, diminish, or altogether reject your personal, marital, and fatherly identity.
This will be one of your greatest battles: to remain true to the person and father that God our Father has created and destined you to be.