The origin of my nickname
The power of an identity.
Very few people give themselves a nickname.
But I am one of those very few people.
It all began in fourth grade when I was feeling a nice dose of existential dread. You know, as fourth graders are prone to feel. I just didn’t “have a thing.” I wasn’t cool. I wasn’t terribly interesting. I struggled to main a sizable friend group, which I felt was important to my preservation in school life because I lacked notable features such as brand-name sneakers and a wide collection of silly bands.
So how does a fourth grader solve this dilemma?
Well, I don’t know how normal fourth graders did it, but I had a special approach. Even at that young age, I possessed the seeds of nerdiness that only later blossomed into carrying around a pocket dictionary and earned 42.2 college credit hours before even graduating high school. So while it’s unconventional, I approached this social problem with an intellectual bent.
I realized one key thing, even in my youth, about popularity: it’s very, very, very, very, very arbitrary.
To this day, I can’t recall the exact train of thought that lead to my idea, but I settled on the most insane strategy to cement my social status. I dared to imagine a plan that could earn me a spot in the annals of history. You might want to sit down for this.
I started calling myself Super Jake.
That was it. That was the whole plan. I gave myself a nickname that, although not terribly descriptive, advertised that I wasn’t any ordinary fellow. I was super. Obviously. Because non-super people don’t just give themselves nicknames. No siree, they do not.
The simple name indued me with powers, though not the superpowers that I would later develop for Super Jake’s mythology (namely, that Super Jake had the power to shoot ice cream out of his hands). The real power came about because of the confidence gained from the silly name. The identity I made up and put on changed something inside of me where I learned to embrace my ridiculousness and unashamedly be myself.
Not everyone became my best friend because I choose my own nickname, but I was able to use the name as an icebreaker in new relationships and as a talking point among friends. By the time I was in fifth grade and had built my first website, I was even writing stories about Super Jake and my friends would beg to have their own made-up alter egos included in adventures with wacky powers of their choice, usually based on their interests (I recall adding Mathematical Michael and Football Blake to the team). Best of all, though, even teachers got in on the game and would call me Super Jake--talk about a great move to get me to participate in class more!
The silly fake identity changed who I was. I credit it in part with giving me the confidence to be kinda weird. Plus, I can’t begin to describe how much debt I owe to that silly name for getting me into creative writing. In fact, my first published novel—launching soon on Kickstarter—is about Super Jake.
While most of us don’t create our own nicknames in order to rise up the social ladder, all of us are familiar with the idea of crafting an identity. We all have some distinctive qualities whether we like to admit it or not. We all side with this team over that or are really into this hobby or choose to style ourselves with a certain vibe. Either other people cast these stereotypes on us, or we choose to think of ourselves in these terms. Maybe we like this identity or maybe we don’t. Like it or not, we all have some sort of an identity.
And that identity can either make us or break us.
It’s always worth asking “What is my identity?” It’s worth breaking down whether our identity is helpful to our flourishing or just based on some kind of fleeting pleasure. Because the stakes are INCREDIBLY high when it comes to identity.
Like it or not, Jesus uses a lot of insider vs. outsider language in the Gospels. And often, the people who get on the inside are not the ones we’d expect. It’s the poor, blind, uneducated, non-Jews who often end up with Jesus, while the rich, healthy, educated, Jews are often on the outs.
What we often put our faith in proves unsuccessful at saving us. No matter how hard we might try, our salvation isn’t found in more money or more relationships. We can’t control our lives with Tarot cards or horoscopes. We can’t hyper-focus on one thing and hope that will give us all our sense of meaning in this life.
Because any identity not rooted in Jesus, the only sure foundation, is going to get wrecked. Any other identity is like play-pretending to be a superhero through a strategic nickname—you might look cool, but it doesn’t really have any bearing on anything. Just adopting a superhero name doesn’t give you powers.
But adopting the name of Christ, does give us powers, at least, it changes us at a core level. Because it’s not just a name. It’s a way of life. It’s seeking to connect with Jesus is a strange, metaphysical, spiritual sense—like what happens in the bond of marriage but cranked up to 11.
I like how New Testament scholar Grant Macaskill puts it:
“we can never talk about the moral activity of a Christian without always, in the same breath, talking about Jesus, because the goal of our salvation is not that we become morally better versions of ourselves but that we come to inhabit and to manifest his moral identity.”
To be transformed, Christ must live in us and we must live in Christ. We are called to deep intimacy with Christ. As marriage expert Dr. Joe Beam likes to say, intimacy means into-me-you-see. He’s talking about the bond of marriage, but it also applies to our relationship with Christ. We have to know Christ so deeply that we see into him—we see his heart, his desires, and his goals. Then we live out what we see.
People should notice our Christian identity as they notice you when you get a new haircut—people comment on it. They note it. What was before is not what is now. In the same way, if we have encountered Jesus and haven’t changed then we really didn’t encounter Jesus. Then our identity was truly somewhere else.
Spiritual formation is identity formation. If we don’t have our identity rooted in something solid, we are going to fade away in the wind.
Try as we might to put on every identity under the sun, we will not find fulfillment unless we inhabit Jesus’ identity which he has designed for us to have eternal life.
Question of the Week
Leave your answer in the comment section below or reply to this email.
How do you live out an identity rooted in Jesus in your daily existence?
My “Goings On”
My debut novel is on Kickstarter! If you feel compelled, you can give to the project here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jakedoberenz/super-jake-and-the-fashion-police-a-middle-grade-comedy
Have a super day,
Super Jake Doberenz
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