It’s a Tuesday night, and I’ve just come home from my weekly gathering with college students. As I enter the door my wife asks me, “How did it go?”

I answer, “It wasn’t great.”

I say that not because things went wrong during our gathering (a last-minute cancellation from one of our worship team members and incorrect slide lyrics), nor because the sermon was bad (although it could have definitely used more preparation and editing), but because fewer students showed up than I anticipated.

After explaining this to my wife, she reminds me of who I am, and that Jesus doesn’t love me any less because there weren’t as many students there tonight.

This conversation happens pretty much every week with my wife, whether I am too discouraged because of low numbers or too confident because of high numbers, and it reveals my own struggle with my identity. I think I am a successful pastor when a lot of students come to our weekly gathering, and I think I am a failure when only a few students attend.

My guess is I am not the only one who struggles with identity. More than half of my conversations with college students on campus revolve around identity, and they range from struggling with their grades and thinking their GPA is what defines them to their dating life and thinking relationships define them.

Justin Poythress’ “Who Am I and What Am I Doing With My Life?” (Good Book, 2026) seeks to tackle the identity question everyone faces: “How do you make the right choices and become the person you want to be?” (11). And while Poythress addresses numerous pressures and questions people have about identity, his book focuses on — and repeatedly points the reader to — an incredibly straightforward yet wonderfully rich truth: Your identity needs to be in Christ.

Summary

Poythress spends the first third of the book explaining what identity is. He defines identity as “your sense of self that connects who you are as a product of your past with who you wish to be in the future” (14). He argues that as Christians, our goal should be to become more like Jesus. “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). God slowly transforms us to become more and more like Jesus, and he does it differently with everyone based on our past and the various traits and experiences he has given us.

But even though God transforms each of us uniquely, there are things all of us can do to center our identity on Jesus. And so Poythress spends the second third of his book outlining three practical ways for us to do that: “to live authentically, to live free, and to tell yourself (and others) the real story of who you are and who you’re becoming” (50).

The first way, living authentically, might initially sound suspicious to our ears. The world’s mantras of “follow your heart” and “be true to yourself” don’t end up making us or the world a better place. But what Poythress means by living authentically is what Paul says in Ephesians 4, to “put off your old self … and to put on the new self.” We need to admit that we are sinners and work on putting our sin to death, while at the same time realizing we are a new creation in Christ and work on developing the fruit of the Spirit.

The second way, living freely, also might raise our eyebrows, but that’s because we often think living freely means we can live however we want. But Poythress explains that our goal shouldn’t be to live free from certain things (rules and regulations, example), but instead our goal should be to live free for things. Poythress defines freedom as “the capacity to be who you were made to be” (70). In order to do that, we need to live in the way God designed us to live.

The third way, telling a story, is what Poythress calls “identity construction” (81). How you tell your story shows what you believe your identity is. And how we can transform to be more like Jesus is to “have one true story to tell with your life. It’s Jesus’ story being played out in you. You are becoming who you are by being transformed to look more and more like Jesus” (84).

The last third of the book discusses some considerations in terms of reshaping our identity to be centered on Jesus. First is how we relate to God, that we understand the right way of having a relationship with him. Poythress uses three biblical analogies to explain this: the Creator-creature, father-child, and husband-wife relationships. Second is finding community, and how the church is an essential ingredient in shaping our Jesus-centered identity. Third, Poythress addresses three areas on which we can be tempted to center our identity instead of Jesus: work, sex, and politics. While each of these is an important part of our identity, we can’t make any of them our master identity.

Reflections

There are a lot of helpful things in this book for people struggling with identity and purpose in life, but three areas stand out.

One is the third chapter titled, “Making the Best of What You’re Given.” Poythress goes back to his definition of identity and describes how “a large portion of your sense of self comes from who you are as a product of your past … your identity has been shaped by people and circumstances entirely outside of your control. These are what we’ll call your givens” (37, emphasis original). Poythress explains how we have different perceptions of these various “givens” in our lives; we embrace some and try to discard others. But if our identity is centered around Jesus, we will be able to accept these “givens” and let God use them to make us more like Jesus.

For some who may be struggling with different givens in their life — whether it is fractured family dynamics or a traumatic past that haunts them — I think this chapter is very encouraging. Sometimes I encounter students who have let their givens define them and lead them down an unhealthy path, or students who feel stuck with their givens and want to shed them but don’t know how to move forward. Poythress offers good advice on how to deal with our painful givens and he reminds us that “God wants [us] to grow in understanding and [use our] givens to become [our] Jesus-self – the version of [ourselves] that displays how great God is” (49).

A second part of the book I found particularly insightful is the chapter on “Living Free.” People want to be free to do what they want, but Poythress explains how “our pursuit of freedom becomes its own lifelong slavery” (66). I see so many students who want to carve their own path. They don’t want to be told what to do with their time, money, or bodies, and yet this fight to be free is draining, and eventually unfulfilling.

Poythress argues that our ultimate freedom comes when we realize we should live with the restrictions God has put in place because that’s what we were designed for. While that might seem contradictory — that to live free is to live with restrictions — it ends up being the most freeing because it means we are living in light of what God has already done for us in Christ. If Jesus has earned our freedom, and God’s attitude toward us is one of love and delight, then we “can be free from insecurity, uncertainty, and lack of confidence because [our] identity is already established” (74). This is an incredibly important reminder for our culture in which we are constantly seeking freedom, but in all the wrong ways.

The third part of this book that is an absolute gem is the discussion questions at the end of every chapter. They are practical questions that address our heart issues regarding identity and really allow the reader to reflect on what Poythress has said. They are well-suited for a small group discussion, making this book a great option for those considering a book study.

Overall, this is a helpful book for Christians who are struggling with their identity and purpose. I would recommend this to my college students, but I would also recommend it as a resource to churches. May each of us seek to be transformed into our “truest and best self. [Our] Jesus-self” (143).

John Kong serves as campus minister for Reformed University Fellowship at the University of California Berkeley.