Let’s play a potentially uncomfortable game for a second.
Take away the thing you’re known for.
Your sport.
Your grades.
Your leadership title.
Your relationship status.
Your college acceptance letter.
Now answer this: Who are you?
That’s not a dramatic youth camp question. That’s a real one.
In Monday’s podcast conversation, we heard what happened when injuries stripped away the thing Elean built his identity around. Soccer wasn’t just something he did. It was who he was. And when it disappeared, so did his sense of stability.
Here’s what no one tells you about identity:
If it can be taken from you, it was never meant to hold you.
High school seniors, you are standing on the edge of massive change. The version of you that exists right now — the one with the routine, the friend group, the role — is about to shift.
And that’s not bad.
It’s just revealing.
College has a funny way of exposing where your identity actually lives. When you’re no longer “the senior,” no longer “the starter,” no longer “the one with it all together,” you start asking deeper questions.
Scripture already answers it:
“See what great love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God — and we are.” (1 John 3:1)
You are not your performance.
You are not your productivity.
You are not your platform.
You are a child of God.
And here’s the wild part: you don’t have to wait for adversity to discover that.
Elean said something powerful — don’t wait until you’re exhausted, anxious, or broken to pursue Jesus. Don’t wait until your identity collapses to rebuild it on something stronger.
Build it now.
Before the injury.
Before the breakup.
Before the disappointment.
Because identity in Christ doesn’t shatter when life does.
