Questioner: Today many people identify themselves with certain jobs and skills. But on account of changing developments in business today I think that a lot of people are afraid they will lose their own identity.
Speaker: This is a rather common concern today, but I don't believe anyone can actually lose his identity. No human circumstance can rob him of it. Regardless of his environment, his social standing, the kind of job he has, or any other human circumstance, he can't lose his identity.

Now, he may succumb to the belief that he's lost it. He may believe that he's useless, that nobody wants him or cares about him. And if this is what he believes, then he's apt to be pretty miserable. But the fact still remains that he can never lose his true identity, his true worth, and it can't be taken from him.
Questioner: Your concept of true identity may be different than mine.
Speaker: Ordinarily, I suppose, we think of identity as the characteristics by which we identify a person—his name, his appearance, his personality. But that's really a limited view. These are human factors, which only hint at his true identity. I'd say that a man's real identity is the sum of the qualities lie derives from the very source of his being, from God— what he actually is, what he reflects eternally as the image and likeness of God.

If anyone will carefully ponder the spiritual thread that runs through the Bible, he'll see that God's purpose for man is that each one should learn to know his spiritual selfhood or his real identity and to bring out more and more of this God-given potential. Isaiah puts it this way (43:12): "Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God."

Everyone—black or white, educated or not educated, presently living in poverty or in luxury— can be a witness to his God-derived nature.

Christ Jesus compared this kind of witnessing to the light of a candle. He asked (Mark 4:21), "Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed? and not to be set on a candlestick?" And he admonished us (Matt. 5:16), "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."

Now, a light doesn't have to make a noise to call attention to itself. Just one candle in the darkness is readily seen because it shines. And a person who bears witness to his God-given identity doesn't have to be pious or wear his religion on his sleeve. If he understands that his real qualities are derived from God and then expresses them, he'll just naturally shine in any human circumstance. I'm talking about such spiritually derived qualities as intelligence, love, humility, resourcefulness, and so on.
Questioner: How can you say that everybody really expresses these qualities when so many people are afraid of expressing themselves in new situations and perhaps afraid of not being able to cope with new responsibilities?
Speaker: Oh. I don't mean to imply that everybody presently expresses all these qualities to the fullest. Far from it. But the spiritual potential is there. The trouble is, most of us are like the candle hidden under a bushel. We're capable of expressing spiritual light, but maybe only just a little of that spiritual light is shining through.

You spoke of one who's afraid because he's got new responsibilities to cope with. I had to face this a number of years ago.

I'd left my business to serve my church, and I was asked to take on a job that, frankly, I really didn't want. I was very apprehensive about my ability to do the work assigned, and one of the thing's I had to do was to give public speeches. I'd never done this, and I didn't think I could.

But I was accustomed to pray when facing any obstacle and, believe me, I prayed earnestly before each of the addresses I had to give. But I knew that I just wasn't getting the message across, and I found myself following a pattern each time that I'd address an audience. First of all, I'd pray to know that God was with me, to know that He supported me, and that I was there to bear witness to God-inspired ideas. Then, after the address, I'd tell myself I was a failure, that I couldn't do the work; and I became pretty miserable.

Suddenly I realized what I was doing. I was denying the efficacy of prayer. If I'd learned anything about prayer, it was that expectancy of good results is absolutely indispensable. I resolved then and there that nothing that happened at one of these meetings was going to shake my conviction that God was with me and was supporting inc all the way. Well, my experience took a decided change. I became less fearful. I was more relaxed, more confident, and a better public speaker, f found that my turning to God for help had lifted the self-imposed darkness of fear of inadequacy, at least to a degree, and that I was better able to let my light shine, that is, to express my true identity better.

Anyone can do this. God supports all of us if we'll just realize it.
Questioner: Suppose someone is perhaps losing his job identity, and perhaps is in the middle of a business reorganization or has been assigned to a different area of responsibility. Are you telling me that he could just sit back and be calm and that everything would then work out all right?
Speaker: No, that's just blind optimism. Just thinking that everything's going to come out all right doesn't make it happen.

Let's go back to Jesus' question, "Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel?" Someone who's facing a job identity crisis needs God's help to remove the bushel, so to speak, to remove that which is obscuring his ability to let his true identity, his spiritual light, shine.

There's only one way to do this and that is to turn wholeheartedly to God, to learn to understand Him better, and to be a witness for the spiritual qualities already within one's own true, spiritual nature.

The Bible puts it this way (Job 22:21): "Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace." And in Proverbs we find (3:5,6): "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."

If we acknowledge the fact that God is Mind, for example, we find that God is the supreme, infinite intelligence of the universe, governing it in perfect harmony eternally through His spiritual laws. From Him, from divine Mind, are derived all qualities inherent in Mind. These would include such qualities as wisdom, understanding, resourcefulness, intelligent action, intelligent control. God, divine Mind, is actively and continually expressing all these God-derived qualities in His image and likeness, man. Each man, then, has the potential, the capacity, to express these God-derived qualities as his true identity.

In summary, let me tell you of a statement from the writings of Mary Baker Eddy that's meant a lot to me (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 154): "It is the purpose of divine Love to resurrect the understanding, and the kingdom of God, the reign of harmony already within us."