Dual Identities?

People have a lot of fun with my name (at my expense!). When someone asks me my name and I answer with "John Smith" - I often get asked, "What's your real name?" "Who are you hiding from?" "Where is Pocahontas?" (By the way, the Indian princess Pocahontas never did marry John Smith. She married a Virginia tobacco plantation owner by the name of John Rolfe!)

I am sure many are glad they do not bear my name - but I must admit I, too, have experienced a lot of fun with my name over the years! So would I trade it for another? Hmm...Let me think on that.

Donald L. LaRose, however, apparently did not like his name. Twenty seven years ago he disappeared from his Indiana home and has not been seen since. The story spread that he was kidnapped by some Satanic cult that had been harassing him (he was pastoring a Baptist church at the time of his disappearance). Finally, after an intensive manhunt failed to find LaRose, an Indiana court declared him dead in 1986. But unknown to the court, his family and everyone who knew him - he was very much alive and living in a small Arkansas town under the assumed name of Ken Williams. And life went right along for Ken ... or is it Don...until just this past week when a newspaper reporter confronted him with evidence that he was not Ken Williams but Don LaRose. Ken ... I mean, Don admitted to his true identity - much to the shock of all of Ken's admirers (he was the town mayor) and Don's family! (Are you confused yet?).

As the authorities and Don's (and Ken's) friends and family sort all of this out (he remarried - is he guilty of bigamy?) I just have to shake my head. What motivated this guy to go into hiding for almost three decades, leaving his family, friends, and ministry behind? I have no clue (by the way, he had done this once before back in 1976 - that lasted a mere three months before he was discovered). But this whole concept of "dual identities" (Don/Ken) reminds me of the dual identities with which we struggle. That's right. If you are a follower of Christ, you struggle, I struggle, we all struggle with wavering between our true, real and God-given identity of being "in Christ" AND our old and stubbornly hanging on (with no authority to do so, by the way) identity of what we once WERE (past tense) before Christ (the Apostle Paul talks about this struggle in Romans 7).

All of us have a choice to make. It is a choice we must make moment by moment. Am I going to live according to my new identity as a child of God? Or am I going to choose to live according to my old identity as a rebellious sinner, hopelessly enslaved to sin and all of its heartbreak and pain? I hope all of us become more consistent in choosing to live our identity "in Christ!"

Oh and by the way, would I trade my name for another? Nah! Why should I trade in my name? It is the most popular name in America!

Thanks for listening,

pj