Introduction
On November 22, 2025, at the Elles Conference at Porte Ouverte, Janick Christen shares her testimony based on Romans 12:1-2. Her message fits in one sentence: your identity is your destiny. When the enemy manages to touch who you are, he sends you where you were never meant to go. But when God lifts the veil, obedience becomes possible, and obedience creates the Father's joy.
Outline of the Message
1. The Enemy Targets Your Identity to Steal Your Destiny
- Janick reads Romans 12:1-2 and reminds us that refusing to conform to this age will cost Christians more and more.
- She tells of her childhood: born in a little girl's body, she sees herself as a boy from the age of 4, in a Christian family that was wounded and lacking security.
- Isaiah 45:9 catches up with her years later: "Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker." Contesting the way God made you (too dark-skinned, too small, too blonde, too heavy, not smart enough), is already touching your identity. There is grace in welcoming yourself as He created you.
- The enemy targets your design. He aims at your identity because he knows that by distorting it, he sends you where you were never meant to go.
2. Rebellion, the Hidden Root of Disorder
- After a path of transition and then ten years of marriage with Laurence, Janick lives a deeply consecrated life: rising at 4 a.m., weekly fasting, times of prayer and worship as a couple.
- She sees fruit, she serves, she intercedes, she sees the sick healed. And yet, when she encounters Christians more on fire than her, a new thirst rises.
- Later, in the long process of detransition, God will show her what was the root of the change: rebellion. "I am my own god. I know better than you what is good for me."
- Janick insists: this root is not reserved for trans people. There are so many things in your life that you withhold from God.
3. Holy Desperation: "I Want You More Than Your Blessings"
- The fire of other Christians reveals your own lukewarmness. Two responses are possible: flee, or want more.
- At 36, like the 7-year-old girl who cried out to God in her room, she cries out again: "I love Your hands, I love Your blessing, but I want You."
- The answer is a choice. "If you trust Me, I will restore you to your original identity. If you don't change, My love for you won't change." The veil lifts, and her entire self-perception collapses.
- God never forces. He sets the choice before you: "I set before you life and death. Choose life." The depth of your relationship with Him depends on your response, not His.
4. Obedience Creates the Father's Joy
- Janick and Laurence choose to obey, divorce out of love, and return to Switzerland. A long detransition, physically even more painful than the transition.
- One day, after shaving her legs, she gets in the car. The glory of God fills the cabin. The Holy Spirit tells her: "I am letting you feel a small part of the joy you created in the Father's heart."
- She then understands the verse: "The joy of the Lord is your strength." It is not first a comfort in grief. When you obey God, you create His joy, and that joy from the Father gives you strength for the next step.
- She reminds us: your free will is real, but when you resist God, you step out from under the umbrella of submission, that extraordinary protection where, as long as you stay close to the umbrella's pole, the rain falls and you stay dry.
5. The Cost of the Secret Place
- "God will never deliver you from the things you love." You must want to hate what He hates, love what He loves. The more you learn to love Jesus, the more you will love what He loves, and He will begin to transform you through the renewing of your mind.
- Transformation does not come from a method. We live in a microwave generation that wants methods; Janick calls us to listen to the Holy Spirit in the intimacy of the secret place. "Few are willing to pay the price of the secret place."
- She testifies: she would no longer be here today without the baptism of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues. In her darkest hours, she no longer even had words in French; only prayer in tongues still rose.
- She closes with a call to sanctification: if you are living in iniquity, deal with it. The Holy Spirit is holy. It would not be a gift to be filled while living in sin, you would believe it's fine with God. Consecrate yourself, and you will be filled, on fire, a witness, able to stand in this generation that is losing its way.
Key Takeaways
- Your identity is your destiny. When the enemy touches who you are, he diverts you from the path God intended for you.
- Rebellion ("I know better than God what's good for me"), is the hidden root of many disorders, and not only among trans people.
- God will never deliver you from the things you love. Transformation begins when you want to love what He loves.
- Obedience creates the Father's joy, and that joy becomes the strength that carries you to the next step.
- Everything happens in the secret place. No method replaces intimacy with the Holy Spirit; the baptism of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues are resources Janick calls us not to set aside.
Personal Application
- Is there an area where God has been speaking to you for a long time and where you resist? Do you know this might be the last time He speaks to you about it?
- Where do you quarrel with your Creator over the way He made you, your body, your history, your temperament, your family of origin?
- Are you ready to tell God: "I love Your hands and Your blessings, but I want You, more than anything else"?
- Do you have, in your week, a regular secret place where you learn to listen to the Holy Spirit, without a method and without an agenda?
- What is the last thing God asked of you that you have not done? What would happen if you returned to that obedience this week?
Verses Cited
Further reading
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this message only concern people questioning their identity?
No. Janick states it clearly: everyone quarrels with her Creator somewhere, too dark-skinned, too small, too blonde, too heavy, not smart enough. The battle for identity is not reserved for trans people; it touches every woman who rejects something about the way God made her.
How can I know if God is really speaking to me about something?
Ask yourself the question Janick poses: what is the last thing God asked of you that you have not done? If you no longer hear God, it is often because you are resisting what He has already told you. Go back to that, obey, and He will speak to you again.
What does "dying to self" mean in practical terms?
It means dying to your perspectives, your desires, your dreams when they collide with what God asks of you. Janick explains that during the hardest week of her life, everything she read and heard said only one thing: "die." Die to what you have always wanted, in order to receive what He wants to give you.
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