I Stopped Asking, “Who Am I?” and Started Asking, “Who Is Jesus?”

By: Holly Gernatt BSN, RN, CCRN, Flight Nurse Educator

I stopped asking, “Who am I?” and started asking, “Who is Jesus?” And somewhere in that surrender, I discovered who I had been all along—because my identity was never mine to create. It was already given to me in Christ.

For years, I was searching.

I was searching for healing. I was searching for truth. I was searching for identity. I was searching for an explanation for the things I had experienced, the wounds I carried, the behaviors I couldn't understand, and the parts of myself I desperately wanted to change.

And for a long time, I believed the answers were somewhere inside of me.

So I went deeper.

I studied spiritualism. I practiced as a medium. I explored meditation, the Yoga Sutras, chakras, energy work, and other Middle Eastern spiritual practices. I was also introduced to A Course in Miracles, and although I never completed the entire Course, I absorbed enough of its framework that I began looking at myself through concepts such as the ego, perception, fear, and illusion.

I thought healing meant becoming more aware.

More conscious.

More spiritually developed.

More capable of recognizing the ego and correcting my perception.

So I examined my mind.

I analyzed my reactions.

I searched myself.

I tried to understand why I thought the way I thought and why I responded the way I responded.

And looking back now, I realize something that has completely changed the way I understand healing:

I spent years trying to fix myself by looking deeper into myself.

Then Jesus Christ changed the direction of my search.

I Was Trying to Fix My Mind. Jesus Was Asking for My Heart.

This is one of the biggest differences I have come to understand.

The Bible certainly talks about the mind. Romans 12:2 tells us that we are transformed through the renewing of our minds. But biblical renewal isn't simply becoming more aware of our thoughts or learning to correct our own perceptions.

It begins with surrender to God.

Paul first calls believers to offer themselves to God, and then speaks of the

renewing of the mind.

I had spent so much time asking:

Why do I think this way?

What part of my ego is producing this reaction?

What am I projecting?

What do I need to understand differently?

Those questions kept bringing me back to me.

But Jesus began asking something entirely different of me.

Give Me your heart.

Not, “Perfect yourself.”

Not, “Discover your highest self.”

Not, “Become enlightened enough to escape the illusion.”

But:

Follow Me.

Jesus says that anyone who wants to be His disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow Him.

That is radically different.

Christianity isn't ultimately about awakening more deeply to myself.

It is about being reconciled to God through Jesus Christ.

And once I understood that, so many things began falling into place.

Jesus Didn't Call My Sin an Illusion

This became another enormous distinction for me.

Biblically, the problem of humanity isn't simply mistaken perception.

Jesus takes what happens within us incredibly seriously.

In Mark 7, He teaches that what defiles us comes from within—from the human heart. He names evil thoughts, greed, deceit, envy, arrogance, sexual immorality, and other sins as flowing from within us.

That stopped me.

Because Jesus wasn't telling me:

Your problem is simply that you don't understand yourself correctly.

He was revealing:

There are things within the human heart that need redemption.

Scripture gives language to things I once tried to explain primarily through spiritual or psychological concepts: sin, pride, rebellion, transgression, iniquity, unbelief, idolatry, deception.

And that language requires something very different from merely changing perception.

It requires repentance.

It requires grace.

It requires forgiveness.

Ultimately, it requires a Savior.

That is why the distinction has become so clear to me:

One worldview told me I needed awakening. The Gospel showed me I needed reconciliation.

Those are not the same message.

“Search Me, O God”

There is another beautiful irony in all of this.

I spent years searching myself.

Now I ask God to search me.

There is an enormous difference between the two.

Psalm 139:23–24 has become the posture I didn't understand before:

Search me, God. Know my heart. Test me. Show me what is within me. Lead me.

That kind of prayer requires vulnerability.

Because when I search myself, I remain in control of the search.

decide where to look.

I decide what something means.

I decide what needs healing.

I decide when I've gone far enough.

But when I invite God to search my heart, I surrender that control.

And sometimes He reveals things I didn't even realize were there.

Pride.

Fear.

Bitterness.

Unforgiveness.

Self-protection.

The need for approval.

Old wounds.

Distrust.

Cynicism.

And this is where my understanding of cynicism has recently become so important.

I Didn't Know I Was Guarding My Heart

For a long time, I wouldn't have described myself as cynical.

But I'm beginning to recognize how often cynicism can become a form of self-protection.

If I don't trust completely, I can't be disappointed completely.

If I stay guarded, I can't be hurt as deeply.

If I analyze everything, perhaps I can control what happens next.

That kind of self-protection can look like wisdom.

But sometimes underneath it is a heart saying:

I don't know if it is safe to surrender.

Following Christ has required me to become vulnerable in ways that my previous spiritual practices never did.

Because I can sit quietly and examine myself while remaining in control.

But surrender requires trust.

And trusting Jesus with the places that hurt means allowing Him into places I have spent years protecting.

That is harder.

But it has also been profoundly different.

I Thought I Had Healed Things That I Had Actually Learned to Manage

This has been one of the most humbling realizations.

There were wounds I believed I had healed years ago.

I had meditated on them.

Analyzed them.

Reframed them.

Worked through the emotions surrounding them.

And yet, as I began studying Scripture deeply and allowing God into those places, some of those wounds surfaced again.

At first, I wondered:

Why am I experiencing this again?

Didn't I already heal this?

But perhaps what I had learned to do was manage pain without surrendering it.

There is a difference.

I had become very skilled at looking inward.

Christianity taught me to look upward.

Not to ignore what is happening inside me—but to bring what is inside me before Christ.

That is why biblical self-examination feels so different to me.

I'm no longer examining myself alone.

I'm saying:

Jesus, come here too.

Come into this memory.

Come into this fear.

Come into this bitterness.

Come into this relationship.

Come into this wound.

Come into this part of me that still wants control.

Show me what is true.

And then I search His Word.

Scripture Became My Measuring Stick

This is why I have become so passionate about encouraging people to search Scripture for themselves.

Don't simply take my word for it.

Don't take a teacher's word for it.

Don't take a spiritual author's word for it.

And please don't build your understanding of Jesus solely from what someone else tells you Jesus said.

Open the Bible and meet Him there.

Read Matthew.

Read Mark.

Read Luke.

Read John.

Watch Jesus.

Listen to His words.

Notice what He says about God.

Notice what He says about sin.

Notice what He says about the heart.

Notice what He says about repentance.

Notice what He says about Himself.

Notice what He says about following Him.

And then ask the question Jesus Himself asked His disciples:

“Who do you say I am?”

That question changed everything for me.

Because perhaps the most important question of my life was never:

Who am I?

It was:

Who is Jesus?

I Found My Identity When I Stopped Trying to Invent It

This is the part that still overwhelms me.

I spent so much time trying to discover who I was.

What is my purpose?

Why am I here?

What makes me different?

What is my spiritual identity?

What am I supposed to become?

But Scripture turned the entire question around.

God had already spoken about my identity.

In Christ, Scripture says I am made new. Paul describes the believer as a new creation; he also describes the Christian life as Christ living in us rather than the old self remaining at the center.

I didn't need to manufacture an identity.

I needed to receive one.

My identity isn't something I pull out from somewhere deep inside myself.

My identity is rooted in whose I am.

And once I began falling in love with Jesus, something unexpected happened:

The more I learned who He was, the more I understood who I was.

That is the paradox.

I spent years searching myself trying to find myself.

Then I started searching Scripture to know Jesus—and began discovering myself along the way.

This Is Witness, Not Argument

I want to be careful here.

I don't share this because I want to win an argument with someone practicing spiritualism, studying A Course in Miracles, practicing New Age spirituality, studying Eastern philosophies, or searching through some other spiritual path.

I know what it feels like to search.

I know what it feels like to sincerely believe you're moving toward truth.

I know what it feels like to think you're healing.

So I'm not interested in standing across from someone and shouting:

“You're wrong.”

I would rather stand beside them and say:

“Can I tell you what happened to me?”

Because there is a difference between argument and witness.

Argument says:

Let me prove that I'm right.

Witness says:

Let me tell you what Christ has done in me.

That is what I want my life to become.

A witness.

I am not here to win an argument.

I am here to bear witness to the One who changed my heart.

Maybe You've Been Searching Too

Maybe you've spent years trying to understand yourself.

Maybe you've read the books.

Practiced the techniques.

Meditated.

Manifested.

Analyzed your ego.

Studied your personality.

Worked through your trauma.

Searched for your purpose.

Tried to raise your consciousness.

Asked the universe for signs.

And maybe you're exhausted.

I'm not asking you to believe me simply because I wrote this.

I'm asking you to do something much simpler.

Read the Gospels.

Not through the lens of what you've heard about Christianity.

Not through my lens.

Not through your childhood church experience.

Not through another spiritual teacher's interpretation of Jesus.

Read His words.

Watch His life.

Look at His character.

Study His claims.

And ask:

Jesus, who are You?

Then perhaps ask something even more vulnerable:

God, if You are there, search my heart. Show me what is true.

Because Christianity isn't an invitation to become better at analyzing yourself.

It is an invitation to know Christ.

It isn't merely:

Wake up and discover who you really are.

It is:

Come. Follow Me.

And perhaps you will discover what I did.

You don't have to spend your entire life creating an identity God has already given you.

You don't have to endlessly search inward hoping someday you will finally find yourself.

Sometimes the question isn't:

“Who am I?”

Sometimes we have to begin with:

“Who is Jesus?”

Because when I stopped asking, “Who am I?” and started asking, “Who is Jesus?” something happened that years of searching could never accomplish.

I fell in love with Jesus Christ.

And somewhere along the way, I realized:

I wasn't finding myself.

I was finding out who I had always been created to be in Him.

And that has changed everything.

A Final Invitation

Don't take my word for it.

Open your Bible.

Search the Scriptures.

Ask the difficult questions.

Bring your doubts.

Bring your wounds.

Bring your skepticism.

Bring the things you don't understand.

But bring them to Jesus.

And instead of spending another lifetime asking,

“Who am I?”

begin here:

Jesus, who are You?”

Then keep reading.

Because you may discover that the One you have been searching for has been inviting you to Himself all along.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart.” — Psalm 139:23