I've always loved personality tests. From Myers-Briggs to “Which Disney princess are you?”, I've always enjoyed analyzing myself, my family, my friends. It can be a fun hobby, but personality tests can also help us understand ourselves and how we relate to the world around us, hopefully with the goal of having healthier relationships. 

But the longer I serve overseas, the more I find personality tests a bit frustrating. Am I answering about the “on-the-field me” or the “home-assignment me” or the “privacy-of-my-own-home me?” The Arabic-speaking me or the English-speaking me?  

Now I get that the whole idea of these tests is to get to the core of who we are, and I'm not arguing against the fact that God created us each as unique individuals from birth. But we have some pretty incredible examples to follow in both Jesus and Paul of people who gave up, or chose to limit, huge parts of their identity for the sake of the gospel. 

Jesus “made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness” (Phil 2:7), and Paul lived as though he were under the law in order to reach those under the law (1 Cor 9:20). They didn't change the core of who they were. Jesus was still God and Paul was still free, but they chose to take on a new identity to save the lost.

This is what the life of a global worker is all about, stripping away so much of our identity in order to better identify with a new culture and people. Maybe I have lots of degrees, but I become like a toddler to learn a new language. I dress differently, eat new foods, set up my house in a different way in order to better connect with my new neighbors.   

So often it feels like we lose a part of ourselves in the process. We crave who or how we used to be. But if our new identity allows us to win someone to Jesus, isn't it totally worth it?