Confessions of an Idolator:

A few weeks ago, someone asked me if I have any anxieties about retiring. I was surprised at how quickly a list of answers came to mind. I’ve never retired before, and I’m not sure what to expect; so, yes, there are anxieties.

As I near retirement, one of the anxieties I’m dealing with is a looming identity crisis. I have devoted my adult life to two professional roles: four decades as a classroom teacher and now eight years as a pastor. Laying aside my identity as a teacher wasn’t difficult because I was assuming another role. But once I am no longer a pastor, what am I?
 
Just like everyone else, I wrestled with identity as an adolescent.

Those “who am I?” questions are part of growing into adulthood, and I can still remember worrying over them. But once I became a husband and then a father, and once I experienced success in my career, I found my identity in fulfilling my various roles. For many years I wasn’t troubled about identity issues, until something happened to bring up all those troubling questions again.

I was a twenty-year veteran of teaching when I misplaced the set of keys the school had entrusted to me, not just my master key but also a key to get into the building. As the weeks passed with no sign of my keys, I began to hear vague and troubling rumors that we might need to change the locks for all the doors in the facility, an expensive undertaking which would also involve cutting new keys for all the employees.
 
What was worst in all this was that I had to ask the rookie teacher across the hall – a young man who had once been my own student – if I could borrow his key to get into my own classroom! It was that daily humiliation that alerted me to the fact that this episode was exposing something in me that I didn’t want to see.

This experience exposed my vanity.
 
In my worst moments, what I saw in this dilemma was evidence that I was a loser, both literally (I had lost my keys) and figuratively (I felt that I was incompetent). This created a negative-feedback loop in my head.

When I started thinking those poisonous thoughts, I could have countered with the evidence that I was otherwise a very successful professional: I was a good teacher, and I knew that. But that would have been nothing more than replacing one false identity (I am a worthy person because I can be trusted with keys) with another false identity (I am worthy because I am a good teacher). In other words, in finding my identity in my skill as a teacher, I would be trading one idol for another.
 
Fast-forward to my present circumstances, and I again find myself struggling with the same existential question: who am I if I’m not a teacher or a pastor? I could answer with the other roles that I will continue to play. I am still a husband and a father and grandfather, and I will continue to serve as a leader in our fellowship. But that response – finding my identity in my competence – is only another exercise in idolatry.

I know that my identity in Christ should be so central to my thinking that this transition shouldn’t trouble me. But the head and the heart don’t always align as they should. CS Lewis once observed that a man may be confident that there is life after death, but that doesn’t mean he won’t be nervous as he faces a firing squad. The fact that I find myself wondering who I am indicates that my identity in Christ isn’t nearly as settled as I want it to be.

We all know that spiritual formation isn’t a smooth, linear process.
 
There’s a lot of three-steps-forward-two-steps-back in our growing in Christ. This is my own two-steps-back moment, and I’m learning how to recalibrate my self-image in line with what God’s Word so gloriously says about all who are in Christ:

Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!)
Eph. 1:4-5, The Message

I am precious not because I’m competent and accomplished but because the High King of Heaven gave up His life to save me!

That’s a self-image this key-loser can embrace!

(In case you’re wondering, I found the keys after four weeks. They were lodged between cushions in the couch in the teachers’ lounge. And the locks were never changed.)