Walking in Your True Identity

A child steps into a room, hands you a picture, and says, “Here, I made this for you.”
It’s a sweet gift from the heart, so you say, “Thank you!” Then you look at it a little more closely and wonder what it’s meant to be.

“Is this a dinosaur?” you ask.

“No,” comes the reply. “That is a dragon.”

You study it for a moment, and then you see it. “Ah! Yes, I can see that now. Thank you so much!”

The child smiles and skips off, happy as a lark.

Later, others may look at the picture and speculate. “That’s a dog.”

You reply, “No, that’s a dragon.”

They insist, “No, I’m pretty sure it’s a dog.”

You respond, “I know the person who drew it. They told me it’s a dragon.”

And just like that, the discussion ends. Why? Because the person who created it gets to decide what it is—not the spectators.

We are all creations of a Master Artist. Psalm 139:16 says, “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

We understand the rules of art. The artist decides what the drawing is. But when it comes to ourselves, we often disagree with the Designer.

Why?

Because there are so many voices telling us who we are—including our own. Somewhere along the way, we forgot the rule. We don’t define ourselves. That was already done.

I was thinking about David this past week. He was a shepherd boy, alone in the desert, watching sheep. David likely called himself a shepherd because that was his occupation. But God called him a king—long before David ever knew it.

Day after day, David sat in obscurity, belittled by his brothers and overlooked by everyone else. By all outward appearances, he was just a shepherd. And it makes sense that people would believe that…except that wasn’t who he truly was.

Sometimes we believe our circumstances define us. Other times we believe our occupation does. Sometimes it’s what others say about us, and sometimes it’s what we say about ourselves. But the problem is the same—we identify with everything around us instead of with who we were created to be.

David was in the desert, but that didn’t make him a cactus. He took care of sheep, but he was not his occupation. He was in training.

For years, it was just David and God. The heat of the sun. The sound of bleating sheep. And somewhere in that solitude, David became a warrior. He learned to be fearless. He rescued sheep from lions and bears. He prayed. He worshiped. He wrote psalms we still read today.

Then one day, God revealed David’s true identity.

King.

It happened quietly, in Jesse’s home, in front of his brothers—every one of them rejected before the anointing ever reached David. He was dragged in from the fields, and without ceremony, the prophet poured a horn of oil over his head.

David? The shepherd?

Yes. David.

Scripture says, “From that day on, the Ruach Adonai came mightily upon David.”

The Bible doesn’t tell us how his family responded at first. But the very next chapter gives us a clue.

David arrives at the battlefield at his father’s instruction and hears Goliath bellow his challenge. Something rises up in him.

“Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the ranks of the living God?”

David had spent years in the desert learning who God was. He had grown jealous for the God who met him there, trained him, strengthened him, and taught him to war. He wasn’t about to cower in a tent while someone mocked the Lord.

The men told David nothing could be done—the giant was too big. David didn’t accept that.

That’s when his brother stepped in.

“What are you doing here? You had one job—watch the sheep. You’re mischievous. Curious. Irresponsible. Go home.”

In that moment, David rejected every false identity his brother tried to place on him: shepherd, child, nuisance, outsider.

Scripture says, “David turned away from him toward someone else.”

David didn’t have time for misplaced judgments. He knew what needed to be done.

Eventually Saul heard him. Saul—the king who held the title but wasn’t acting like one. The fate of a nation hung in the balance, and Saul agreed to let a boy fight his battle.

Saul dressed David in royal armor, but David quickly realized, This is not who I am. He removed it and went instead to the stream, choosing what he had proven again and again in the desert: a stone and a sling.

Why?

Because he knew what a stone could do. He knew what he could do with a stone. This was who he was.

When David stepped onto the field, Goliath laughed.

“Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?”

Now the giant was trying to define David: runt, child, unskilled.

David rejected that identity too. He knew who he was—and whose he was.

We know the rest of the story. One stone. One giant fallen. And suddenly, the entire army remembered who they were. All it took was one person believing what God had said about him.

God alone is worthy to declare who you are. Not your family. Not your friends. Not your occupation. Not even your own self-doubt.

You have been called worthy. A child of the King. A royal priest.

So what are you calling yourself?

Does it align with what your Creator says about you?

If it doesn’t, you are not living according to your design, your purpose, or your calling.

You don’t get to decide. Neither does anyone else.

Remember the rule: the one who made the drawing decides what the drawing is.

So hear what He says about you in Psalm 139:

“Lord, You have searched me and known me…
For it was You who created my inward parts;
You knitted me together in my mother’s womb…
All my days were written in Your book
before a single one of them began.”

God has written a story about who you are. And if you’re living under any other identity, you’re settling for less than the life He designed for you.

The only question left is this: will you agree with the Artist?

It is your choice. You can rise into the identity He has declared over you, or remain in a position that was never meant to define you—only to prepare you.