Finding My Identity in Christ

Lifetime Journey

Coming to Christ

For most of my life, my identity was wrapped up in what I could do. I was an athlete. A competitor. Someone who could contribute through my performance. Football, in particular, gave me a sense of purpose. For four years in college, it structured my days, demanded my best, and in return, gave me confidence and belonging. But then it was over. And I wasn’t prepared for what came next.

I remember that first January after my senior season ended. While the rest of the team started their winter workouts, I didn’t have to be there. No more 6 AM lifts. No more film study. No more practice. And for the first time in my life, I didn’t know who I was. It was a full-blown identity crisis. Without football, what did I have to offer? What was my worth? Who was Jeffrey Charles Ford, really?

The truth is, I wasn’t walking with the Lord at the time and didn’t have much of a relationship with Him. I had spent so much of my life measuring my value by what I could achieve that I had never considered who I was outside of my performance. I was insecure, lost, and trying to figure out how to be a man without understanding what that even meant. That pattern followed me into marriage. I tried to do the right thing, tried to be spiritual, but I didn’t know how. I wanted my wife and me to be on the same page, but I was grasping at something I couldn’t define.

Then came a low point in my life; a moment when everything seemed to fall apart because I was unfaithful in my marriage.

But here’s the miraculous thing: it was in my deepest, darkest moment that Jesus met me. In my brokenness, in my guilt, in my pain—He was there. It wasn’t in a moment of triumph or strength; it was in my absolute wreckage that He finally had my attention.

For so long, I had treated God like a last resort, someone to turn to when I needed a quick fix. But this time, He wasn’t offering an escape. He was offering redemption. He was telling me, You do not have to find your worth in what others think of you. You do not have to prove your value through what you achieve. I am the one who gives you worth.

That truth changed everything. My value wasn’t in my performance. It wasn’t in how well I could convince people that I had it all together. Not in my identity as a coach or teacher. It was in Christ alone. He had created me in His image, and my worth was determined by Him—not by my success, not by my failure, not by the approval of others.

Looking back, I see the pivotal moments not as setbacks, but as turning points. My failures, my struggles—they all led me to the most important truth of all: my identity is not in what I do, but in the One who saved me. And that is enough.

Be well,

Jeff Ford