Global workers often wrestle with the concept of being known. As we adapt to a new culture, we find it difficult for our home culture to understand the new us. And yet, our new culture doesn’t truly accept the ways and habits we bring with us from our former lives. We’ve become something new that doesn’t quite fit in anywhere and feel it challenging to be truly understood. 

The temptation is to only reveal the things that reflect the culture we find ourselves in, whether our host culture or home culture, and in so doing, feel like we are never truly our whole self in either. But I want to challenge us. Let us do the difficult work of knowing ourselves as we’ve become to be in this very moment (and in any other future moments when we are feeling unsettled). And as with most worthwhile efforts in a Christian’s life, we must begin with God’s Word.  

In John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, one of his main premises is that without knowledge of God there is no knowledge of self. The foundation and core of who we are is discovered when we study God as He reveals Himself in His Word. The better we know God, the better we know ourselves. And the better we know ourselves, the more freedom we feel to reveal our whole selves wherever we are despite the cultural nuances surrounding us in that moment. Who we are isn’t determined by the wavering and varied world we find ourselves in, but by our steadfast and unchanging God. Our insecurities and sadness in feeling unknown or misunderstood melt away as we engage with our all-knowing and compassionate God.  

This multicultural life will most likely always carry a slight sting of not being fully known. When we feel that sense of loss, let us remember to turn our hearts to God’s Word, working to understand and know Him deeply. And in that process, we will feel more seen, known, and understood than any culture could ever make us feel.