Who are you?

Like most small airplanes, ours has something called a transponder. This instrument allows an airplane to be recognized by an airport control tower. That’s because it enables each plane to be assigned a “squawk code,” a distinct set of numbers the air traffic controller sees on their radar screen. Through identifying planes this way, the controller is then able to keep everyone safe.

This got me thinking about how God identifies His children; in fact, how God is constantly identifying and defining each one’s purpose, guiding their way. Each has a precise, individual, spiritual identity that’s already assigned. It belongs only to us.

We don’t have to hunt it down, worry about it, change it, adjust it, or develop it. It doesn’t go through stages or ages. Each of us is the distinct reflection of Love, God.

The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, says in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” “The divine Mind maintains all identities, from a blade of grass to a star, as distinct and eternal” (p. 70).

It can be easy to miss those two important words – “distinct” and “eternal.” Sometimes I get so caught up trying to figure out what seems like my all-over-the-map human identity that I completely forget what I’ve learned in Christian Science – that my real identity is distinct, eternal, and entirely spiritual. Not material. Not fuzzy. Not formless, limited, or lacking a single essential quality. As God’s children, we each are defined, focused, and recognizable. That’s what keeps us vibrant and safe.

True selfhood is complete and always present. And like numbers and musical notes, you could hardly be more clearly identified. Can you imagine a musical scale missing a note? Of course not. You can’t be missing. You reflect the living Principle, Love. You’re not optional, you’re integral!

Moreover, Love didn’t conceive of Her perfect spiritual ideas so they could stump around in a personality-based swamp of emotional distress, physical illness, lost opportunities, moral slumps, addictive highs, or intractable diseases. God didn’t create attractive or unattractive personalities.

As an entirely spiritual idea, each of us is safe, sound, and necessary. Surrendering an indistinct, mortal sense of identity allows the gentle glow of Love’s Christly light to shine directly onto us as unique expressions of boundless spiritual qualities.

Science and Health says, “Sometime we shall learn how Spirit, the great architect, has created men and women in Science. We ought to weary of the fleeting and false and to cherish nothing which hinders our highest selfhood” (p. 68).

We cherish our highest selfhood by spiritualizing thought and Christianizing daily life (see Science and Health, p. 272) with humility, childlike receptivity, and willingness to surrender fear and ego. In the process, we recognize that since we are distinctly spiritual, we are also distinctly loved. Our talents, affections, intelligence, abilities, desires, relationships, when conceived of spiritually, come forth in the way that serves the highest good.

Several years ago I was out of work. I’d been wedging a few anxious prayers in between hours of worry, but the “praying” mostly boiled down to imagining just the right job for my talents, and then humanly trying to figure out how to land it.

Then one day, bending over a load of laundry, stressing about the next chapter of my life, I decided to go to another room, sit down, and quiet my heart and mind. I opened an issue of The Christian Science Journal and read several articles on the topic of identity and purpose.

After a while, my thoughts shifted, the way light shifts when clouds rearrange, and this message came through: My purpose is entirely spiritual.

I continued to ponder this and spent some dedicated prayer time releasing my false identity. These thoughts came: I am not a collection of human personality traits, with X number of years of experience. I’m not a mere skill set or located in a flawed, human psyche. My identity is not dependent upon or obstructed by age, education, socioeconomic background, race, etc.

I dropped the worry, stopped the anxious hunt for work, and embraced a daily practice of dedicated prayer and writing. This led to a greater sense of humility and peace and, eventually, exactly the right job.

Divine Mind has given you a “squawk code.” It is constantly identifying you as perfect, spiritual, distinct, and eternal. All you have to do is accept that identity, trust it, and live it.

Adapted from an article published in the August 2024 issue of The Christian Science Journal.