When Jesus gave us the eschatological saying, "Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it" he bestowed his followers with a very important lesson about faith and self-identity.
The development of one's own faith and religious identity has as much to do with one's loss as one's gain. Nearly every life journey is a venture that changes us. Each historical action is a venture into risk - into non-identity. When we grow we abandon our former selves, the selves we knew, and find something else. Some things may stay the same, but much changes.
As Friedrich Schiller wrote in the Reiterlied:
"Unless you place your life at stake,
your life will never win."
Only through the risks we take in the course of the journey can we grow and self-actualize. When we risk ourselves we are more likely to embrace Emmanuel Levinas' call to prioritize the 'other.' In the spirit of existential persistence, we can find ourselves in the 'other' that goes beyond all others.
When we jump into the abyss of the unknown we are, in fact, trusting in the hidden and guaranteed identity we have with Christ. As Barth states in his Epistle to the Romans, "He is the hidden abyss; but He is also the hidden home at the beginning and end of all our journeyings."
In the risk of faith, we trust in the hidden and guaranteed identity we have with Christ crucified. As Christ died, so too do we, but so also shall we be raised (Col. 3:3-4). Our identity cannot be established in isolation, but only through our relationships. If phenomenology is to be believed, the subject can only self-perceive if it is in a relationship with an object. Consequently, it is through our imitation of the cross - of Christ's self-emptying - that we find our own identities. In Christ, all things are made new (2 Cor. 5:17).
And, it is this Christ - this liberator, this redeemer - who can save us from our own inhumanity. It is in this Christ that we can find a new self and a new life.