Encanto: Identifying Your Worth

True Identity Doesn’t Fade

So many times, we equate our identity and worth as people with the skills we possess or the achievements we accomplish. This is definitely a theme in Encanto. One particular character in the movie that most loudly expresses this issue is one of the sisters, Luisa. Her gift in the movie is superhuman strength, and as a result of her upbringing and responsibilities revolving around that strength, her identity is directly attached to it. This very obviously becomes an issue as her strength wanes in the movie. The initial reaction, I think, is to feel sad that her gift is fading, but even deeper, I think the true sadness is that her identity is leaving with it. This happens in the lives of people all the time.

I think of the students that I interact with regularly who feel lost when they can’t continue playing the sport they’ve grown up with. I think of adults who lose a job or a position and with it their own sense of worth and identity. There are so many places that we can misplace our worth and identity, and they can all fade away. But this is not the case when our identity and worth are correctly found in Christ.

True Identity is Found in Christ

One of my favorite ways to illustrate the longing that people have to be united with Christ and fully find their identity and worth in him is to consider a hand and a latex glove. Gloves were ultimately created by human hands in the image of human hands. And gloves are most efficiently filled and purposeful when they are worn by a human hand. The same is true of our nature and Christ. We were made by God and in the image of God, and we are at our best when we are filled with God and used by God.

“16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.”

1 John 4:16 NIV

A practical way to live out this identity that is secure in Christ Jesus is to love your neighbor. God doesn’t want you to be bad at things, He wants you to use what you’re good at to love people and to point towards Jesus. I can think of nothing worth doing more.