Family reunion this past weekend. I have a cousin (actually a cousin in law) that has compiled our family lineage back to the Revolutionary War. My grandmother on my mother’s side has quite a lineage. There is either a grandfather or uncle, depending on who you ask, that rescued the colonial flag from the British and returned it to Savannah. There is a statue and square in Savannah named for him. This past weekend he has completed even more of the family tree and we discovered that my grandmother’s grandfather was Benjamin Harrison. The first President elected by the electoral college that did not win the popular vote. Obviously a one term guy but still President.

Then there’s the side of the family for which I am named. Beer distributors, (rich but questionable), my father a drug addict and alcoholic, abusers, dubious characters…

Well when do you change your name? Brian is preaching on Identity right now. If you go back in my history there are not many people who did not think I would be dead or in prison by now. I was definitely following in my father’s footsteps. And then…somebody introduced me to Jesus. I am no longer who I was…not yet who I think God intends me to be…but on the journey. My identity is no longer the crazy drunk kid, the hell-raiser, troublemaker but a child of the King. Amazingly God sees me whole, complete, forgiven, white as snow. That’s what the Bible says.

Now do I still struggle with wondering if I measure up. Certainly, but when Satan attacks me with accusations I try to remember to answer him with the Scripture…God has forgiven me and remembers my sin no more and has removed it as far as the east is from the west.

Not a President, not a hero, but a Child of the King, adopted as a part of the Royal Family. That’s my identity today. What’s yours?