Identity and Envy

Identity.  I have been thinking a lot about my identity lately.  And then Envy.  Pastor Pat gave a great message on Envy today at church.  And I thought he was talking directly to me.  And I immediately made the connection to my struggles with identity to my struggle with Envy.
Identity.  I have sought out many in my life.  You know: weird kid at school, sweet soccer player (that didnt work out), sweet YL leader (again, that did not really work out.), and more recently, a good/cool teacher.  These identities are what I wanted badly but yet have never quite been able to grasp them.  Well, I did grasp the weird kid one pretty well.  Soccer, I made it my life and that back fired.  YL, I love leading and trust that through Christ I have done a good job but I was not the all star leader I wanted to be.  And teaching, well that is yet to be determined. 
But today I realized that I wanted those things because i envied others.  I wanted what my friends had, what other YL leaders had, who other teachers are.  And when we are always envious towards others we will never be content in who Christ made us.  As Pastor Pat said, envy will always keep us from Christ.  We need to accept our Identity in CHRIST and put envy to sleep.  Confidence in who we were made to be. 
I will post a link to the sermon when it gets put online but you can find it at discoverthepoint.org go to the watch/listen tab and then select the Sylvania campus.  The West Y campus had a similar sermon given by my normal Pastor Ryan and i am sure it is great as well so feel free to give that a listen as well.
Love Y'all
Oph