Connect S01E03 Rerun_Identity Beyond Labels; Created With Purpose

What if your name, your job, and your family roles vanished tomorrow—would you still recognise yourself? We open a candid conversation about identity that moves beyond the tags we wear to the core that remains when titles change. Starting with the everyday moments when we’re asked to prove who we are, we trace how labels function like number plates—useful for direction, useless for propulsion—and how chasing recognition on social media can leave a quiet ache of emptiness.

Together we look at the pressures that train us to perform. From childhood fear-based lessons to classroom comparisons and the herd mentality that follows us into adulthood, we unpack how early scripts can mask the true self. Then we pivot to a better foundation: the creation vision of being made in the image and likeness of God. Identity, in this light, is a gift before it is a goal. Purpose flows from design—stewardship, creativity and care—so your calling isn’t confined to a job title and doesn’t evaporate at retirement. We also explore customised roles, the dignity of difference between male and female, and why distinction does not mean hierarchy.

Amid a global culture that loosens old anchors of tribe and village, we offer practical ways to build a sturdy core: name the labels that rule your mood, resist comparison, practise image-bearing in small faithful acts, and choose presence over performance. You’ll hear relatable stories, clear takeaways, and a hopeful path to live with meaning when the world gets loud. If you’ve felt unseen without a title or trapped by a tag, this conversation will help you recover a grounded, resilient self.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs encouragement, and leave a review to help others find it. Then tell us: which label are you ready to lay down today?

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Why Identity Matters
• 0:50 Names, Labels And Verification
• 3:18 Jesus’ Question And Modern Labels
• 6:10 Social Media, Noticing And Emptiness
• 8:56 Jobs, Retirement And Identity Crises
• 10:45 Audience Engagement Invitation
• 11:29 Are We Born With Identity Crisis
• 13:39 Globalisation And Loss Of Community Anchors
• 15:12 Genesis 1: Identity In God’s Image
• 18:20 Design, Purpose And Customisation
• 21:10 How Identity Gets Masked In Childhood
• 24:10 Comparison, Fear And Herd Mentality

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Welcome to another episode of Connect where we go beyond Sunday. This is your program where we integrate the Word of God with real life issues. And Winnie, here we are again on another episode of Connect.

SPEAKER_00: 0:18

Yes, good to see you, Pastor. Yes. How have you been?

SPEAKER_01: 0:20

Oh, God has been good, and we have quite a bit of feedback from our listeners, our viewers, those who are connecting with us through Parky Radio, and those who are connecting through Paki TV. And uh it's becoming quite obvious that there is a convergence in what we are uh having a conversation on here on this talk show.

SPEAKER_00: 0:46

Oh, that's good to know that they are also connecting with us at Connect.

SPEAKER_01: 0:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 0:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 0:50

Today we have a very interesting topic. Again, we are talking about identity. The question of identity is a common question. Many times in different places, you will be asked who you are. In fact, we've gone as far as uh we carry identity cards. We we have to identify ourselves. And so there are places you go and you are told to identify yourself. There are places you go and you are you are asked the question, who you are. But also making it more personal where you ask yourself, who am I?

SPEAKER_00: 1:31

Yeah. And it's interesting you say that there are some places you carry an identity. That means nobody is believing what you're saying, who you are. They need evidence from somebody else who's confirming that actually you are the person in the ID. As in the ID is somebody verifying who you are.

SPEAKER_02: 1:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:50

So you just cannot go there and say, oh, my name is a BCD. Your chief a long time ago said, Yeah, we know this is so and so. So the question I think of identity is a very interesting question. And the question, who are you? Pastor, if somebody was to ask you, who are you?

SPEAKER_01: 2:09

I will quickly say, I am I'm a pastor. Maybe I say I am a father, I am a husband, I am an intellectual, and and many other ways of describing who I am. And the question is, is that really who I am?

SPEAKER_00: 2:28

Yes. Even your name, interesting. In Kiswahili, if you are asked, Una itwa nane, not una jiita nane. That means a name is something you are given. So you you appeared and you realized, oh, my name is Winnie because I was named by my mother Winnie. So it's not something even you named yourself. So if you are even to remove yourself, your name, who are you? I think it gets tricky.

SPEAKER_01: 2:57

I I had never looked at it uh from that angle. The literal Kiswaili translation of that question from Kiswaili to English is saying, you are called who.

SPEAKER_00: 3:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 3:11

Of course, in English we ask, what is your name?

SPEAKER_00: 3:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 3:14

But in Swahili we ask, you are called who. And and interestingly, at some point, uh Jesus was having this conversation with his disciples, and and he asked them, Whom do the people say I am? Who is the son of man? What are people saying that I am uh the son of man? And I'm just thinking, was really Jesus struggling with identity? I don't think so. And we will come into that at some point. But what are the questions that um we use to try and answer? Or rather, what are the statements we use to try and answer this identity question? And are they sufficient in defining and describing who we are? Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 4:02

So because if if you see, like you say, that for me, I am a mother, I am a wife, realize all those things. I have to have other people to connect. I am the daughter of so and so. And sometimes if you really want people to know you very easily and you are a cousin of the president, say, I am the cousin of the president. From there, I think everything else is settled. I mean, you have to use a big label somewhere to identify. So the question I think for everyone is apart from the relationship, because all these things are external to you. And I think maybe that's why sometimes there are a bit of crisis when somebody is childless and you have to meet women who always have to say, I am the mother of souls. What happens to somebody who has no child? What happens to a woman maybe who is not married and everybody's using the label of I am somebody's wife? But I think there's still more to that because all this you realize are things that are external to you. The question is, how do you really define yourself? And I think that is what Jesus wanted to know from the disciples. How do you call yourself aside from labels? Yeah, because I think the rest are just like number plates, KC we. But does it say anything about a car?

SPEAKER_01: 5:16

About the car.

SPEAKER_00: 5:17

Not really.

SPEAKER_01: 5:17

And and again, I I also realize in our society today, people seem to be searching for identity. There is a cry for identity. And and and people are even now doing all manner of things.

SPEAKER_00: 5:36

And the social media.

SPEAKER_01: 5:37

You know, when we come, for example, to social media, there is a way people want others to perceive them.

SPEAKER_00: 5:44

Yes, and to be remembered. And I think the question of identity also comes down to the question of do people notice me? You know, nobody wants not to be noticed. All of us human beings want to be noticed. You want people to know who you are, listen to you. And that's why sometimes you use those big labels. I am the daughter of so and so. I am the cousin of because you want people to notice you. But what happens now when you don't feel when you don't have those labels? You have to look for something now to create attention. But I think there's more to personal identity than just the levels.

SPEAKER_01: 6:22

So so there is an emptiness then that has to be filled by trying to get tags. People find identity in in different aspects of life. So somebody may find identity in the job that they are doing, for example.

SPEAKER_00: 6:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 6:44

What happens when you're no longer in that job?

SPEAKER_00: 6:47

Because it is a reality. Even after working for as many years, there will be a time you'll no longer have the chop the job title. What happens? That's where sometimes there's those crises. And I think there are those crises in life. There's the retirement crisis, I think we've seen. In fact, many, because I after you've worked all these years, maybe you are an accountant. Suddenly you don't have a the accountancy tag on you. What do you call yourself? And I think it's important then to think how do I build an identity that is solid within that is beyond all the other levels? Because what happens when everything else is removed. Who are you then? And I think that is the question where it should all start. Who are you away from the levels? Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 7:34

Yeah, and and I think um we invite our viewers to connect with us. You can share your comments uh on the comment section. You can also send your views, your questions through the email address that is provided so that we can also engage those questions, engage on those real life issues that that you may be having when you think about identity.

SPEAKER_00: 8:02

And Pastor, you had talked about something about crisis. So do you think it is very important to really understand who you are, though?

SPEAKER_01: 8:11

I think it is very important that uh you have a clear understanding of who you are. And as we come to that, the question is are we born with that identity crisis really at the at the place of uh birth? Is it something that we acquire with time because of conditioning? Is a child maybe struggling with identity when they are born? Or do they acquire this? And now that we have become a global village, we are no longer defined by just our locality. We are not just defined by our tribe or where we come from.

SPEAKER_02: 8:52

Or a clan.

SPEAKER_01: 8:52

Or a clan. And the pride of I am from this clan, I am from this tribe. Is no longer the case because of the global nature of life right now. We are defined globally. There is influence from every direction. We are no longer a conservative community where we are saying we have our norms, we have our customs, we have uh beliefs, the things that really defined us as a community. Now, people have broken that. And probably in the process, there is now a crisis of really who we are.

SPEAKER_00: 9:34

Yes, because I think we depended so much on, as you said, the village, the tribe, the family. But what happens now when we live in cities? You live in a neighborhood where you don't know your neighbors. Your neighbors in the village back there where we were brought up, every you knew everybody and everybody, and you know you belonged. The question is, how then do you really build an identity away from family and the close relations? Because I still believe it's possible to build an identity that stands on your own. And that's the the point we are trying to drive home. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 10:08

And and answering that question of whether being clear on your identity is important, we want to look at a scripture. The Bible tells us in Genesis chapter 1, at the point of creation, it gives us the mind of God as far as human beings are concerned. And so the Bible says that then God said, Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock, and all the wild animals, and over all creatures that move along the ground. And then verse 27 says, And so God created mankind in his own image. In the image of God, he created them, male and female, he created them. And then he went ahead to bless them. And I think um uh three quick points that you can jump in as we discuss from this passage on how important is it then for us to have clarity of our identity. Uh, first of all, God did not just create us without a purpose, without a plan. He did not create us to be anything, he created us to be something, he was very specific. So it is very important to have clarity in terms of our identity because God himself was very clear when he was creating us because he says that he created them in his own image and in his own likeness. So there was a design, so they're not formless, they are not without um an identity. So, first of all, God gives us identity.

SPEAKER_00: 12:09

And I think that's that's I think uh thinking about manufacturing because sometimes you may think, oh, these things are imagine even an ordinary any manufacturer. Let's take an example of Samsung, the manufacturer of a television. By the the the manufacturer knows the purpose of a thing before he creates the thing. So by the time the thing appears, it has purpose. So I think for us as uh as uh as human beings, even as you said, there was something before, there was a purpose before the creation. God created us for something, and any anywhere, in fact, like a glass like this, is fashioned just to carry water, it has they figured out somebody will need to hold it. It can carry water, maybe if it is a glass that can take in hot water, it is designed in such a way that it can hold hot water, if it is cold water, so it means the design and purpose are seems to be intertwined.

SPEAKER_01: 13:08

Yes, and you see, it is then very important for our viewers to know that God has not created us without an identity. God has not even created us to seek our own identity, God has not created us to be lost, to to to be wandering out there, and and and we don't know who really we are. God has created us very specifically. And most important is that the identity that God gives us is that we are created in his image. So when I appreciate this, it it already starts having an impact on my life that the way I am, I'm not an accident.

SPEAKER_00: 14:01

But what happens, Pastor? Because it seems uh the design seems to be correct. Everything at the design stage is good, but it seems as we come along, because by the sometimes, by the time we are all grown up, and these things happen happen when we are grown up. By the time you're grown up, and like I think last time we said life happens. Things, you know, life has many things, and things happen along the way that at some point somebody looks back and says, Who am I? Who am I? Because some and maybe some other people are just sticking to one definition. I am just I am I am an accountant, and they only have the only definition of themselves is one. So it means they see something that gets lost along this along the way. And I think looking back at a bit of psychology, psychology says uh something happens because actually, interestingly, what psychology says, by the time a child is seven years, when a child is born, they say they call in a brain call theater. So they learn. You imagine a child when they are born from the time they are zero years to seven years, they learn a lot. And interesting way, when we how we learn as children is we learn through looking and observing what is going on around us. And the problem is uh as we look, the people who are who are teaching us are not aware that they are teachers. And I think identity gets lost by the time some people are seven years, they've been mixed up. Why? Because of how we are socialized and how how we bring up children actually affects who they come to think they are. And sometimes now somebody gets we get lost. In fact, so early, by the time we are seven years and we are going to school, because by the time we go to school at seven years, that's why they say children should start school at seven, because there's a lot of learning you learn at home. How to behave, how to talk, potty training. Nobody knew all those things. But as you learn, there are so many things that you learn. And the sadly, most of the things we learn are fear-based. And what how we we we end up building an identity of fear. And this identity of fear masks really what the design God has. You see, when children are growing up, when they're young children, children have interesting interests. Some children will take a ball and play, some will sit here, some will play chamama, but the design and how they play is very, you can almost see a personality, somebody's personality growing up. It's like they are clear what they need to do. But what happens by the time we are adults, we forgot and we all try to be the same and we look around. I think one of the other things, maybe that is why CBC here in Kenya we're doing away with is comparison. Because in school we always look, we we always learn to compare what is number one doing. If number one got 70 marks, we don't care that it seems we were all failing. We just compare. So comparison is a so we just look. What is pastor doing? Am I not how far am I from what I think? What is the best practice? So we get so socialized that we forget there's an identity and there's a purpose that is unique to you. So by the time we are adults, we just compare. So we are looking at others and comparing. Nobody is thinking, what do I need to do? And that's why sometimes the creativity, the whatnot, the things that would advance society is lost because all of us now end up thinking the same. And I think that's what we call hard mentality. It is very common and we learn it early. And it is mostly fear, I said fear-based. And I want to give an example, especially even for us, and being an African mother, and I think you're a parent, so you understand how we bring up our children. You know, the stick, it's it's fear-based. Why? Why do we beat children anyway to reinforce good behavior? So that's because why the pain will help you remember next time if I climb by table, I'll be beaten. You know why? Because I'll remember pain. So most of our training and reinforcement, even in our environment, is fear, fear, fear, fear. Where's so that by the time we are growing up, we just want to avoid problems. In fact, people will say, Me, I don't want to talk because I don't want problems. Trouble. So we keep on to ourselves, to ourselves until at some point you lost it.

SPEAKER_01: 18:40

And I think uh again, the other thing to also bring on board is the fact that um there are so many noises. There are so many noises. There are there are all these voices trying to tell you who you are.

SPEAKER_00: 18:55

And you see, even advertising, you know what advertising does is to lure you to towards something that if you buy maybe a product, if you wash your clothes, you'll be noticed. If you do this, so it is as you're saying, it's just using the same psychology.

SPEAKER_01: 19:14

Yeah, yeah. And so then to our viewers, it's it's very important then to say that you will not have find true identity in the noises of this world. You will not find true identity in the tags, the various tags that we have and labels that can be used.

SPEAKER_00: 19:39

And also in the normal thinking, as in it is something you said it has to be slightly deeper. We said, because sometimes we've already been programmed by the time we are seven or seven years to think like everyone else and to just be social and to comply with the with the norms, such that the person, the real you is some mask, it is so hidden that it actually takes deliberate effort to find your identity. So it's not something, as we said, it's not on the surface, clearly.

SPEAKER_01: 20:10

So again, God has already given us an identity.

SPEAKER_00: 20:15

No, there's no doubt about that.

SPEAKER_01: 20:16

Created in his image. Yes, created in his likeness. But secondly, this identity also defines purpose because of all the things that God created, it is only man, he says, that this one I am creating so that he may have dominion.

SPEAKER_00: 20:37

So the purpose was dominion.

SPEAKER_01: 20:39

The purpose was dominion so that he can rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, and also over the livestock and the wild animals. And basically, God is saying, I am this particular one, I am creating as a partner. Is my partner in managing, in what I am, I am doing, what I have already created, and that gives us purpose. And so when then your identity is misunderstood, or when you are not clear about your identity, then you miss purpose, then you're also missing out on purpose. But thirdly, the other thing I also see from this particular passage is that um identity also defines roles. You know, he goes ahead to say he created them male and female, meaning there are certain abilities, there are certain roles and deliverables that God customized. In this man, he called male. And there are others that he has customized in this man he calls woman. Remember, they are all in his likeness, they are all to have dominion, they are all his partners. Then he customizes them. And what you are talking about, you can have a glass that can hold hot water. And there is another glass that will not hold hot water.

SPEAKER_00: 22:12

Because it's not designed that way.

SPEAKER_01: 22:13

Because it is not customized.

SPEAKER_00: 22:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 22:15

They are both glasses. They are useful, made probably from the same material. But there is a customizing that has been done on this particular glass. If you put hot water, it holds. If you put another one, if you put hot water, it breaks.

SPEAKER_00: 22:33

And you see interesting pasta. Even now, I think for man, as you said, the assignment is dominion. Do you know everything in nature has a purpose? That is why the leaves are green because of the need to do photosynthesis. I mean, if you see even the fly, we hate flies, but without flies, there's no decomposition. That means nothing would disintegrate. And you know, nature is growth and disintegration. It changes, it's changing form. So everything in nature, it's interesting. Study nature, everything has purpose. And so there's no way as humans we can miss purpose. And I think, as you said, if we miss, if we don't understand who we are, and we miss our purpose, then there's a lot of emptiness. Because imagine you're you've missed the whole assignment.

SPEAKER_01: 23:23

So you're saying you don't have to be somebody else. I don't have to be weany.

SPEAKER_00: 23:29

No, no, you need enough.

SPEAKER_01: 23:31

And you don't have to be, you know, me. God has designed us, God has created us with an identity. It is inbuilt. When all these other tags of life collapse, I still remain to be in the likeness of God. I still remain to be in the image of God. When all these things are fallen, the tags have fallen off. I don't have a job, I don't have this income, I don't have that car. You have a name. Something at the end of the day, there is still purpose. And at the end of the day, I have a role to play. This has been Connect, where we go beyond Sunday talking about identity and reminding you that you have an identity. Connect with us. Let's continue engaging in this conversation. Let's know your comments, your thoughts. Share with us your questions, and we are going to respond to those questions right here on Connect. Until next time, God bless you.