On Jesus’ Sheep 

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand (John 10:27-29, ESV).

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Have you ever had to write a bio for yourself?

Every now and then I find myself once again tasked with the deflating challenge of briefly explaining who I am for a website of some sort. My name is Julia, and I, like almost everyone else in northern America, enjoy coffee, books, and the outdoors. Anything else I include might age poorly.

How do you give someone a sense of who you are without opening yourself up to being radically misjudged, all because the joke you agonized over putting in sentence #3 doesn’t actually land? I think writing a bio is the worst.

Forget bios—what about social media? Could someone scroll through your Instagram or Facebook and really get an accurate sense of who you are? Or maybe you don’t have social media—what about a simple introduction? If someone just asked you your name and what you do for a living, would you say they know you?

Who are you anyway?

What if you were articulated perfectly. Someone hands you a manila folder, and inside is a blunt and astoundingly accurate explanation of you. You thumb through the pages finding stark, impersonal reports of your weaknesses, fears, and strengths captured in the most accurate way. What if it said it all—your personality, how well liked you are, how attractive, how smart, how personable, and even why you are the way you are. All the ways you are ordinary and all the ways you don’t fit the mold. Everything cringeworthy. The most appalling things about you—things you would be ashamed to ever be published for everyone to know. Imagine it even went so far as to describe how well you love others—your most admirable feelings right alongside your most hidden and harbored selfishness, both clearly and plainly exposed. Every way you hurt others, and every way you’ve been hurt.

What do you find more unsettling—to think of all the ways your perception of yourself might be misaligned with reality, or to think that there would be a last page and whether good or bad, there is a finiteness to who you are.

What’s your Myers-Brigg? Does that say who you are? Your Enneagram? Does that excuse who you are? Your IQ? Is it noteworthy? What values do you stand on? Are you right? What are you willing to fight for? Will you make a difference? What do you love? Is it good? What do you hate?

How much of our time and our thoughts are devoted to putting a finger on that hard question of who we are, and why that matters?

What if the thing that matters most about who you are—far and above all else, is simply who Jesus is?

In John 10:27-29, Jesus says “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”

The bio of a Christian is hearing Jesus’ voice, being known by Him, and following Him.

The odds of Jesus’ sheep perishing or getting snatched out of Jesus’ hands? Zero. Our identity rests in hands far stronger and greater than all the uncertainty and doubt and struggle one could ever face. What a radical way of seeing yourself—as hearing the Word, being known by Him, following Him, receiving eternal life from Him, and never perishing. An absolutely “unsnatchable” sheep. How sweet to have an identity that, in every part, is unfailingly and unstoppably accomplished by Christ. The question of who we are might be better put as “who is Jesus?”

There are a thousand tempting ways of viewing and defining ourselves, but as Christians, no definition or identity runs deeper than our identity as those who belong to Christ. Politics, career, relationship statuses, hobbies, health, family, patriotism, intellect—even our own memory might fail, but for those who are in Christ, nothing can snatch us from the Father’s hand.