Day 1. Building your identity.

Well, welcome to Week One. As you found out in the welcome videos, my name is Dave Quak and I am a pastor and I have bipolar disorder. And the goal of this course, as you might know by now, is to figure out what it's like to live with a mental illness and to go after Jesus fully.

So as a pastor, most people expect that you know how to live your life fully in Jesus. And they expect that you understand Christianity and how to apply the Bible and what that looks like.

I've actually been a pastor for 20 years, and right here at Palm Beach is where I was first a pastor with my wife, Jess. We were youth pastors at a church called Beachside. And basically we've served together in this amazing and crazy dichotomy of being fully alive in Christ, and also, you know, wrestling with my mental illness.

And so I'm a pastor, but I also have bipolar. And if you don't know what bipolar is, it's basically a mood condition where you get elevated and you stay in this manic phase for a certain amount of time. And in mania, you're either euphoric or dysphoric, which means it's either really good or really bad.

So you can be manic and dysphoric and you feel like you're on top of the world, like you've had like 15 coffees, like life is going well, like you're jacked up from the gym—whatever your kool-aid is, you feel fantastic about it.

And when you're manic, for me at least, it feels like your ideas are the best ideas on the planet. And if anyone comes against those ideas, then they're coming against you personally. So you get enemies and you come against people who you love, and you find yourself in loggerheads in all different situations.

For me, this was the first year I ever experienced dysphoric mania, and so all the elements of being depressed were matched with all the energy of being manic. And so it was dark, and my thoughts were horrible, and I wanted to hurt people, and I wanted to, you know, think about destruction.

And I’d daydream about someone trying to hit on my wife just so I could bash them and hurt them. It was like I needed some moral compass to funnel my anger into, and it was really twisted.

And so when you really come down to it, I am not mentally well. I have issues. I think things I shouldn't think. I desire destruction when I shouldn't. I've got an addictive personality. I found out that I'm not a drug addict, but I'm like a drug seeker.

So basically, a drug seeker is someone who, you know, doesn't go out and actively get drugs, but if they hurt their back and the doctor comes round, they're secretly hoping that the doctor will prescribe some Valium just so they can get a little buzz.

I mean, so there's all this stuff going on in my head, and in amongst it all, I'm trying to figure out how to walk with Jesus. And what I found to be most freeing in the whole thing is that even though I'm a pastor with bipolar, neither of those two things define who I am.

Neither of those two things are my identity. My identity isn't in the fact that I'm a pastor. There is nothing more spiritual or holy about being a pastor than a bricklayer, than a teacher, than a surf instructor. All of those things can be calls of God, and if you do them to His glory, they all give Him praise.

So my identity is not about being a pastor. My identity is not about being someone with bipolar. I have bipolar, but being someone with bipolar isn't my identity. I'm not known as "Bipolar Dave." I am Dave with bipolar. And if we misunderstand what it's like to have mental illness, we'll put our identity in our mental illness instead of what God says about us.

See, God doesn't look at me as pastor or bipolar. He looks at me as son. He looks at me as someone who has been absolutely and completely restored to Him through Jesus Christ. And so now I have an inheritance as a Son of God. I'm not defined by what I do, even when it's crazy, even when it's destructive, even when it's good.

I'm not defined by my broken brain, even though it's part of the fall. And even though I'm doing my best to get better, I'm defined by my proximity to God. And the way we get our identity is by listening to the person we value most.

If I value the opinions of my friends the most, they might say, "Dave, you're frustrating. Dave, you're annoying. Dave, you need to get away from me" or "Dave, you're awesome." All of those things are only built on a person's opinion.

If I put my identity and who I am based on a doctor's opinion, he or she could be amazingly insightful and amazingly trained and tell me that I have bipolar. But that's not who I am.

The ultimate authority on how we form our identity needs to be built on the person we value most. And in my life, I value God's opinion more than anybody else's opinion. I value what He has to say over me more than anybody else—whether they're enemies or friends.

And He says, "Dave, you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Dave, you are my son. Dave, I love you and I like you. Dave, I want to be in relationship with you and walk with you and pour out my grace upon you."

And sometimes when I mess up, I come to God and I say, "Man, I'm such a broken individual." And He says, "I know. But that's why I sent Jesus—to redeem the brokenhearted."

My life is absolutely full and absolutely chaotic. My life is fantastic and horrible and great and frustrating. I have some days when I'm holy and other days when I'm a maniac. And all of that doesn't change how God sees me. He sees me as His son.

And so before you go forward in this course, what I have to implore you to do is make sure that you're building your identity on what God says about you. Don't build it on what anyone else has said about you—not the good or the bad. You need to build it on what God says about you.

And in our journal, you're going to have some Bible verses that I want you to read and think about. And those Bible verses will talk about God's perspective of you. So if we have the misunderstanding that God is against us, we are going to live like God is against us.

But even in my brokenness and even in my turmoil, I know God is my Dad. And I'm going to live as a son.

So this week, we're going to have a whole bunch of devotions around who we are in Christ, and I encourage you to do them every single day. Make sure you watch the one-minute videos. Make sure you engage with the journaling. And take some time to be with God and let Him reveal to you how much He absolutely loves you and is for you and wants to be in relationship with you.