reading

“When you find a leader who genuinely cares about helping you reach your highest potential, you make room for their voice. You prioritize it. Jeff Little is a voice worth listening to. Who Am I? provides excellent insight and practical help to answer this critical question. I highly recommend it!”

“People don’t change because they feel guilty or by sheer force of will. In the long run, genuine, lasting change happens when we experience biblical truth in a way we can apply in our day-to-day lives. In his new book, Who Am I?, Jeff Little gives us this kind of help. It will make you laugh, it will inspire you, and best of all, it will help you discover the person you were created to be.”

“As my pastor, Jeff Little has helped me become a more effective leader, a better wife and mom, and a more engaged follower of Christ. The key to my growth has been learning to root my identity in who God says I am.”

“Every human being needs encouragement. We can’t be healthy without it. Jeff has been such a great source of joy and strength in my life and I know he will be the same for you. Who Am I? will make you laugh and inspire you to become everything God’s called you to be. You don’t want to miss it!”

“In a world overflowing with information constantly grabbing our attention, some questions don’t go away. They demand a response. Jeff answers one of life’s most fundamental questions in a relational and biblical way. I believe this is one of those books you’ll find yourself coming back to.”

All right reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or in any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the copyright owners.

Scripture quotations from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

To my parents, Jimmy and Kay Little, who made great sacrifices
that allowed me to discover who God created me to be.

INTRODUCTION

It may be life’s most basic question. It may also be the most difficult to answer.

We avoid it, we laugh about it, we go through phases, we try out different versions, we ask others to tell us, and we even try to find it by looking at someone else’s answer.

It’s one of the very first questions we ask, and one of the last questions we reflect on.

No one else can answer it for us, and yet in and of ourselves we’re not capable of answering it on our own.

Back when I was a kid, we didn’t have hundreds of TV channels, streaming services, on-demand, or even DVDs. Let’s be honest—when we were kids, we didn’t get to pick what we watched. We watched what our parents or siblings decided.

You never got to hold the remote. In fact, most of the time you were the remote.

If you wanted to watch cartoons, you basically had three options: Saturday mornings, a few old cartoons early in the morning, or maybe a show or two when you got home from school. That was it.

One of the cartoons I remember was Tom & Jerry. It was super violent, but it was also hilarious. Every episode was basically the same.

Because Tom was a cat, he would prowl around acting like the world revolved around him. I know, that part was realistic.

Eventually he’d run into Jerry the mouse, who was usually just trying to live his life and maybe find something delicious to eat. Of course this drove Tom insane, launching him into an unrelenting, murderous rage.

A common plot in several episodes found Jerry’s life interrupted by the appearance of a baby animal that had lost its way—sometimes it was another mouse, sometimes it was a duck or a bird, and one time it was a baby elephant. Jerry was a compassionate guy, so he’d try to help the little fella.

Inevitably there would be a moment when the little animals would look to their new caretaker—Jerry the mouse—and call out, “Momma” or “Daddy.” They were confused. They didn’t know who they were, so they tried to identify themselves by imitating their role model.

Jerry was a good dude. He never left the little guy with the psychotic cat but kept searching until the animals were reunited with their family. And every time, both the babies and their parents would be grateful for returning them to their proper home so they could grow into who they were created to be.

Everybody lived happily ever after. Except for Tom—he’s still recovering from repeated blows to the head.

When you’re a kid yourself, watching a baby elephant try to act like a mouse is silly because it’s obvious there’s a difference between them. That’s not who they are—that’s what makes it funny.

But life isn’t always so clear. The answers aren’t so easy to find. We can easily spend big portions of our life trying to be something we’re not or looking for validation and definition from the wrong sources. This isn’t just discouraging—it’s painful.

How do we know who we are? And what happens to us in the process? Does anyone actually know or is it one of those frustrating puzzles with no real answer?

Mark Twain said every intelligent person asks themselves three questions: Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? The second two questions only make sense when you know the first—and in some ways, it’s all one big question.

Our struggle to understand ourselves never goes away. Life is difficult, it’s complicated, and most days it’s hard to comprehend. We’re all looking for something to hold on to, something we can depend upon, something we know remains true even if everything around it continues to change.

We keep coming back to it in every significant season of our lives. As our roles and responsibilities change, we’re forced to come back to this central issue.

We never finish with it. And when we don’t know or we’re not sure, we’re bombarded with the thousands of voices trying to tell us who we are on a daily basis. It’s often easier to see this play out in the lives of others than to see it for ourselves. But this issue is bigger than child development, adolescence, or the journey to adulthood. It transcends culture and the changing characteristics of each generation.

It’s more than cultural or generational—it’s at the very core of what it means to be human.

Sociologists and psychologists have argued for decades about which factors exert the biggest influence on our development and identity. The simplest way to summarize this discussion is “nature or nurture?” Does our identity, our unique sense of self, come predetermined, or is it the result of the atmosphere we grow up in?

The great news is, we’re not left to fend for ourselves. We’re not the first ones to feel this way. From the beginning of time, human beings have wrestled with these questions in profound ways. The process is not easy or immediate, but there’s real, practical help available to each of us through the timeless wisdom of God’s Word.

In many ways, it’s the central struggle of every human life: Who am I?

A couple of years ago, when I started to research and study this subject, I was surprised by how many different characters in Scripture wrestled with this question—many of them returned to this question throughout the course of their lives.

The Bible is filled with people who either couldn’t answer the question “Who am I?” or, worse yet, were ashamed and embarrassed by their answer.

Job was a great man, but he was also the husband of a bitter wife and the father of wicked children.

His son Jacob was a momma’s boy and a manipulative con-artist who would pretend to be whatever the moment required.

Moses was an orphan child who grew up in the palace of the empire that tried to kill him.

Samson fell in love with a Philistine and married her, sending his life into a tailspin.

David was the son his father forgot about on the most important day in the history of his family.

If you’ve ever felt confused, unloved, unlovable, ashamed, or insecure, you’re in good company. And the best part is, God didn’t leave any of these men and women in their mess.

He’s a loving Father who longs to call His children to Himself—to dust them off, pick them up, and help them see themselves the way He sees them.

That’s why it’s so critical for you and me to not just answer the question “Who am I?” but to get it right.

Now take a deep breath. It’s not all on you to make something of yourself. The weight this pressure produces crushes our souls. It’s one of the greatest challenges we all face.

I want to help you see yourself the way God sees you. I want you to discover who He created you to be. I can’t think of anything more important to the quality of our lives.

He’s a loving Father who longs to call His children to Himself.

Maybe you’ve heard this before. Maybe you’ve been down this road and you feel frustrated by your inability to come to a clear conclusion. Maybe you’re discouraged and disappointed with where you find yourself in this season of life.

No matter where you find yourself, as we start this journey together, my prayer for you is that God would give you fresh eyes to see the real you, the deep you, the version of yourself you know is out there somewhere waiting for you to discover.

He wants to do it. It’s going to take more than my insights, thoughts, and stories to get this done. It’s a supernatural job—good thing we serve a supernatural God!

The God who created us wants us to know Him. And as we understand His nature, His character, His heart, and His ways, the image of who we are at the deepest level begins to become clear.

WHO KNOWS ME BETTER THAN ME?

The Problem With Self-Identifying

There was nowhere to hide, no place left to run. I was cornered with the dark reality of my life.

I didn’t want it to be true. I needed it to be simply someone else’s opinion, an optical illusion, or the cruel exaggeration of an unflattering angle.

But as I looked at the photo on my friend’s phone, I was left defenseless. After a long day out on the water, riding jet skies and swimming, my hair spray had completely washed out. It no longer had the ability to maintain the mirage. The millions of little pixels in the image on the phone made it clear.

My generally positive outlook on life and considerable skill with a hair dryer allowed me to live a lie. What I perceived as a pretty cool hairstyle was actually an elaborate comb-over.

As painful as it was, right there in the moment I made the decision to change. My days rocking a power mullet were officially over. We’d had a good run—team mullet had been strong from ’80s hair bands to Billy Ray’s 15 minutes of achy breaky heart—but somewhere along the way my “cullet”¹ had become a “skullet.”²

I got shaving cream and a razor and began my journey with a shaved head by choice. These were uncharted waters. I had to figure out who I was without my glorious, flowing locks.

And most of us didn’t understand what he was talking about, so we got the Cliffs Notes. Maybe that was just me. It couldn’t just be me though—it’s still one of their top-5 best-selling editions.³

I may not get the wordplay and subtleties of this masterpiece, but this phrase captures the heart of our culture. Our devotion and esteem for this idea have only grown in the more than 400 years since Bill put quill to parchment.⁴

Chances are, even if you managed to skip Hamlet, you’ve heard this phrase. It sounds so inspiring. It looks great painted on a wall or framed on a decorative plaque. You can find it on all kinds of jewelry, and more recently it’s become a really popular tattoo.

But stop for a minute and think about what it’s actually saying. Think about how crazy this little statement is.

Above all, the top of your list, the highest priority, the most important person, the one deserving of the highest honor is your own sense of self.

Most of us don’t have the nerve to actually admit this is how we feel, but the default setting of the human heart is to put our own needs and desires above everyone else. Our sense of self is a combination of our dreams, passions, and goals, and nothing is more important.

Every one of us carries within ourselves the elusive image of our ideal self—the best version of who we truly are.

Some of us are more familiar with this view than others, but all of us are in pursuit of our true, authentic selves. We spend billions of dollars and all of our energies trying to bring this fuzzy image into focus for the world to see—and ultimately embrace.

Every one of us carries within ourselves the elusive image of our ideal self—the best version of who we truly are.

We may look for it in different places, through different means, and express it through our unique quirks and personality, but we’re all chasing the same thing.

We want to be seen, recognized, known, and loved. We need the people we admire most to tell us, “You matter.” We’ll do whatever it takes to make this happen.

Most days we live in the gap—the gap between the ideal way we see ourselves and the way the rest of the world perceives us. That’s why most people don’t like looking at pictures of themselves. It’s why bad hair days frustrate us. It’s why it’s so weird to hear a recording of our own voice.

It’s incredibly disappointing, depressing, stressful, and discouraging when we feel like no one else sees “the real us.”

I’ve felt this. You’ve felt it too—and not just one time on a particularly bad day.

This sinking feeling stalks us throughout our lives, ushering us into a first day at a new school, spending long stretches with us in the workplace, creating mistrust in our marriages, aggravating relationships in our families, taunting us in low moments, and stealing our joy on days we should be celebrating.

Most days we live in the gap—the gap between the ideal way we see ourselves and the way the rest of the world perceives us.

“No one understands me” is close friends with “No one cares about me,” which hangs out with “If you were gone, no one would even miss you.”

At the bottom of this emotional spiral is the misguided, seemingly innocent yet deadly belief: “No one knows me better than me.”

I love America. I consider it a great privilege to live in this country. But sometimes our greatest strengths can become our greatest weaknesses. We wear our right to personal expression and individuality as a badge of honor in America. It’s who we are. It’s hardwired into our DNA. The only kings we put up with sell smoothies or burgers, and even those guys promise us we can have it our way.

People come to America because it’s the land of opportunity. Like no other nation in history, the U.S. is the place where hard-working, determined people can make a new life for themselves. Don’t get me wrong; I’m grateful for this. I’ve personally benefited from this—in one way or another we all have.

But when you take this notion to the extreme, you end up with seemingly innocent sayings like, “You can be whatever you want to be.”

Over the past 30 years, we’ve cranked the volume on this message in our schools, in our neighborhoods, in our little league sports’ fields, and in our homes. We put it on repeat. We’ve blown our kids’ ears out with it.

Most young people have heard this little phrase (or something similar) so many times it’s gone from an encouraging thought to a never-ending anxiety. We were well-intended; we just didn’t think through all of the potential drawbacks.

It sounds so appealing, so healthy, and so idealistic. But here’s the problem:it’s not true.

It feels like it should be true. Big dreams and hard work can create social mobility, generate wealth, spark innovations that result in big companies, and change the trajectory of entire generations of families. These astonishing and inspiring stories happen in front of our eyes all the time.

Young people from disadvantaged backgrounds succeed beyond their wildest dreams and captivate the heart and attention of the world. No doubt about it. This can be healthy and worthy of celebration.

And yet some things, no matter how bad you want them, are unattainable. There are things we can imagine and things we want that we can never reach.

We love to tell ourselves anyone can grow up to become the President—like we all get a turn—but even if that’s true, you’re never going to be the Queen of England. It ain’t happening. If you’re five feet tall, you aren’t going to be the center for the Lakers. And I can guarantee I’m never going to dance in the NYC ballet—sure, there’s the whole lack of grace issue, but let’s be honest, the tights would be a real problem. It’s probably best for everyone.

We love the thrill of the chase. Our hearts are captivated by the allure of the impossible.

We love the possibilities this narrative creates for us. And yet when we step back in a moment of quiet reflection, we know it’s not real. It’s a narrative fallacy. It appears so trustworthy and genuine, but when you push back on it, the whole thing falls apart.

Only a few short decades ago, conventional wisdom told us most people experienced some version of a mid-life crisis. After chasing, pursuing, and accomplishing their goals in pursuit of the best version of themselves, they hit the reset button.

The evidence could be seen in a wide variety of clear external indicators—a drastic career change, moving halfway around the world, an all-consuming hobby, a massive style makeover, an expensive convertible, a secret addiction or relationship, or simply a much younger trophy spouse.

You know what I’m talking about. In fact, in your mind, you can picture at least one specific person who checks all the boxes.

The scariest thing about these radical shifts in identity is the why behind the what. The motivation for their behavior is more significant than the actions themselves. Most drastic course corrections don’t come from people who were unsuccessful in reaching their perception of the best version of themselves; the opposite is true.

They climb to the top of the ladder, they hit the target, they check off the boxes, they fill the bucket list—and it doesn’t deliver. So they pick a whole new identity and start the process all over again. They get the newer, upgraded significant other, they build the second business, or they conquer the new career, only to wind up in the same place all over again.

The only thing worse than failing to reach your dreams is achieving all of them only to discover their profound inability to fulfill your soul at the deepest level.

Life’s greatest mystery, the thing driving our curiosity, the passion behind our pursuit of new and more enlightening experiences, is this hunger to discover who we were created to be.

While we love the notion of “discovering ourselves,” the reality is typically tedious and unfruitful. Somewhere in the journey we discover “self” is a bottomless pit. The self-help section in the bookstore has grown drastically over the last few decades. In fact, in a single year Americans spent $11 billion on self-improvement books and resources with a 6.2 percent expected annual growth rate⁵—yet personal fulfillment continues to go down. The self is a moving target, a fickle and uncertain master incapable of peace and contentment.

The strategy of satisfying the self through indulgence continues to fail us even as it leaves fractured and broken relationships in its wake.

Shakespeare’s Hamlet may be the greatest play ever written, but he’s dead wrong. When we decide above all to be true to ourselves, we’re headed toward a Hamlet-type ending. Spoiler alert: the selfish plotting, scheming, backstabbing, and revenge end with everyone miserable and dead.

We’re not the first ones to experience this frustration. We often forget this in our technologically driven world. We love upgrades. We love the new and improved version. Yet this internal wrestling has been with us as long as human beings have been on this planet.

“Do you see a person wise in their own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for them.”⁶

Even the most gifted, accomplished, and successful among us are incapable of self-identifying. In fact, they’re the most likely to make this mistake because they’re usually right. We all have blind spots—at least the fool understands he doesn’t know everything.

Be wrong about the weather, wrong about who’s going to win the Super Bowl, or wrong about the best place to eat sushi.

You don’t want to be wrong about who you really are. It can cost you everything.

We can’t do it on our own. Our perspective is incomplete. So who can we trust?

If we were sitting down talking over a cup of coffee, here’s what I’d say to you:

WE WANT TO DEFINE OURSELVES—IT DOESN’T WORK.

The default setting of the human heart is to put your own needs above everyone else.

Most days we live in the gap between the ideal way we see ourselves and the way the rest of the world perceives us.

Life’s greatest mystery is this hunger to discover the elusive image of our ideal self—the best version of who we truly are.

You don’t want to be wrong about who you really are. It can cost you everything.

____________

1 curly mullet—business hair on top, curly party in the back

2 skull mullet—bald head on top, curly party in the back

3 If you went to high school after 1994, you could just watch The Lion King.

4 “Bill” is a light-hearted reference to William Shakespeare. Most scholars believe he wrote Hamlet around the year 1601.

5 “What People Are Still Willing to Pay For,” Forbes, goo.gl/WPbmHe.

6 Proverbs 26:12, NIV

2 WHO CAN I TRUST TO HELP ME?

The Voices Trying To Tell You Who You Are

The fear of human opinion disables;
trusting in God protects you from that.

— Proverbs 29:25, MSG

There is a moment in every young person’s life when they become aware and sensitive to the opinions of their friends.

We want the approval of our peers. We want to feel cool. We don’t want to be teased because our mom bought us the knock-off generic crayons instead of the Crayola Deluxe 64 set with the built-in sharpener.

You had to keep a good reputation because an embarrassing moment could change the social status of your entire childhood.

This may come as a surprise to you, but one year in elementary school I was messing around with my friends during the first couple of days of class. We were out by the track and I remember being dared to run the hurdles.

Now I was the kid at lunch who looked at everybody else’s tray when they had half a piece of pizza left and asked, “You gonna eat that?” You know what I’m saying?

In other words, I may not have been the ideal candidate to run the hurdles, but I enjoyed the spotlight and was never one to back down from a challenge. I may be wrong, but I’m never in doubt.

I started cruising along, cleared the first hurdle and started to hit my stride. I was hamming it up, playing to the crowd, imagining my Olympic moment, when I lost my balance and heard a giant “rrrriiiiiippp.”

I looked up to discover my split pants hanging from the metal obstacle. Remember, this was the first few days of school, so these were my new “good jeans,” the jeans my parents just bought me—for the entire school year. This was a problem.

My parents were far more concerned with being good stewards than maintaining my image. This theme would play itself out over the course of my entire adolescence. My dad could not care less about how cool my friends thought I was.

I distinctly remember several different times growing up when a classmate came up to me and said, “Little, your dad is in the parking lot with your car jacked up.”

I knew they weren’t lying. My dad would be out there doing auto repairs on the family vehicle in plain sight of all my friends.¹ Not cool.

If I was going to rip my pants goofing around on the hurdles, I wouldn’t throw those jeans away for another brand-new pair. Oh no. I would be reminded of my choice the rest of the school year, as they remained a staple of my wardrobe.

The lesson my parents were teaching me was clear: don’t rip your pants trying to be cool, and don’t let other people pressure you into being something you’re not.

My kids think about 1986 the way I think about the ’50s. But I remember 1986.

Walter Payton, Jim McMahon, Mike Ditka, the Fridge and the rest of the Chicago Bears won the Super Bowl.

Applications to the Navy’s flight school went up by more than 400 percent because Top Gun was the coolest movie in the world.

And phrases like “Halley’s Comet,” “Chernobyl Meltdown,” and “Space Shuttle Challenger” dominated the news and pushed our understanding of technology, science, and progress.

But to my kids, a world without the internet, laptops, tablets, and smartphones is essentially the Dark Ages.

They may have a point. A recent study showed the average person now receives the equivalent of 174 newspapers worth of information—more than five times the typical rate in 1986.²

Digital marketing experts estimate that the average person sees between 4,000 and 10,000 marketing messages per day between commercials, print ads, brand labels, FB ads, Google ads, phone messages, and anything else a business can produce to get your attention and compel you to buy.³

To stand out in the pile and rise above the noise, marketers have to be increasingly specific and smart. Selling a product or simply meeting a need won’t move you to action; in a crowded marketplace the successful companies sell brand, experience, lifestyle, status, and identity.

More than a product, goods, or services, they tell you a story about who you are, what you deserve, your social class, and the next level of fulfillment waiting for you. They do this for a simple reason—it works.

Starbucks isn’t a cup of coffee; it’s a daily connection to a community.

You don’t buy a Tesla to get you from point A to point B; you do it because it demonstrates what kind of person you are. This is the point of luxury brands like Rolex: you’re not just buying a product; you’re buying a persona.

I could give you a plethora of illustrations for everything from clothing to hygiene to vacation destinations. Advertisers understand that people like to hear these stories, especially the stories they relate to, because people like to talk about themselves.

Our ears perk up anytime we hear stories, anecdotes, statistics, or insights capable of helping us to answer our most pressing and fundamental question:Who am I?

Several years ago a study conducted by Advertising Age confirmed this. They compiled a list of the top 10 Facebook stories of the year that included riveting articles you probably recognize, such as “What Animal Are You?” “What State Do You Actually Belong In?” “How Observant Are You?” “Can We Guess Your Real Age?” “What Color Is Your Aura?” “How Old Do You Act?” “How Old Are You At Heart?” “What Kind of Woman Are You?” and, of course, “How Did You Die in Your Past Life?”

PRAISE FOR WHO AM I?

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

In many ways, it’s the central struggle of every human life: Who am I?

He’s a loving Father who longs to call His children to Himself.

1

WHO KNOWS ME BETTER THAN ME?

The Problem With Self-Identifying

Every one of us carries within ourselves the elusive image of our ideal self—the best version of who we truly are.

Most days we live in the gap—the gap between the ideal way we see ourselves and the way the rest of the world perceives us.

Life’s greatest mystery, the thing driving our curiosity, the passion behind our pursuit of new and more enlightening experiences, is this hunger to discover who we were created to be.

WE WANT TO DEFINE OURSELVES—IT DOESN’T WORK.

2

WHO CAN I TRUST TO HELP ME?

The Voices Trying To Tell You Who You Are