The professional who knows their identity in Christ before the crisis is a completely different person in the crisis.

The layoffs had been announced. His role was eliminated effective in thirty days.

Michael had expected to feel devastated. The identity question he'd never fully examined surfaced immediately: without the title, who are you?

He'd been a Christian for fifteen years. He knew the right answer intellectually. What surprised him was discovering he hadn't fully built on it.

The thirty days were hard. But something happened in the difficulty that hadn't happened in the stability. He went back to basics — Scripture, prayer, honesty with God about what he was actually feeling. And in that process, 1 John 3:1 became more than a memory verse.

"That we should be called children of God. And that is what we are."

Not "was" while employed. Not "might be" if the next role came through. Are. Present tense. Permanent. Not conditional on circumstances.

Michael found his footing — not quickly, but genuinely. And when the next opportunity came, he stepped into it differently. Less desperate. Less performing. More secure.

The pressure hadn't created the identity crisis. It had revealed one that was already there. And in revealing it, it created the conditions to actually build on the right foundation.

In a quiet moment this week, sit with 1 John 3:1. Read it slowly. Ask God: "Is my sense of identity actually built on this — or on my performance, title, or results?" Bring the honest answer to Him.

Father, root my identity in who You say I am — not in what I produce, not in what I hold, not in how others evaluate me. Build in me a foundation that holds when everything else shifts.

In Jesus' name, Amen.