How would your child answer the question: Who are you?
Many people spend their entire lives seeking to answer that question. They try on different identities the way a model changes clothes, yet nothing fits just right. Some go to great lengths to find their identity, plumbing the depths of all that this world has to offer, only to come up empty. Others may think they’ve found it in their career or in a role they play in life or in a talent they have, only to lose hold of that thing and find themselves unanchored and lost.
Who are you? is an important question, and one we want to help our children answer. And it’s one that the Bible speaks to in a way that nothing else can.
Start at the Beginning
As Christian parents, we’ve all read Bible stories to our children. Kids are familiar with the story of creation, with Adam and Eve, and what happened when they ate the forbidden fruit. Sometimes, such stories become stale, ones we read through over and over, and we miss their significance. But these stories in Genesis 1 are the foundation we want to lay for our children. The word ‘Genesis’ means beginning and this book tells us our origins and why we are here.
The next time you read these stories with your children, help them see how they give shape to their identity. For example, the story of Creation tells us that God made everything by the power of His Word. This means that everything belongs to God. He designed and created it. As a designer, He made things for a purpose. Each plant, animal, star, and person have a function and purpose in this world. When your child creates an object out of Play-Doh, ask her what it is and what it is for. Point out that just like the things she creates have a purpose, God is our creator and He made us for a purpose. “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth’” (Gen. 1:26).
Teach your child that God created her in His image to live for Him in this world. He crafted her by His own hand, and she is beloved of God. What does it mean to be in the image of something? We’ve always teased our youngest son that he looks just like his father. He has his image. Everyone knows he’s his father’s son. Yet God is a spirit and doesn’t have a body like humans, so we don’t bear His image in the way my son bears his father’s image. But we do image God when we do the things that He does. Part of that includes ruling over the fish of the sea and the birds of the heavens. We help care for all that God created. We also image God in other ways, such as in our own creating, in our love and patience for others, in our work, in our rest, and so much more. As we reflect God’s image in these ways, we bring Him honor and glory. Our lives point to Him and magnify Him.
Identities Impacted by the Fall
As you read through your child’s Bible, pause when you get to Adam and Eve’s sin in the Garden. This story, too, has significance for your child’s understanding of who she is. As adults, we know the world around us is confused about the source of identity. That’s because every human enters this world fallen in sin. We reject the one who created us, and the image of God that we bear is marred by sin. We look to false sources to give our lives meaning and purpose. As Romans 1 says:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.— Romans 1:18–21
Teach your children that, because of what happened when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, we are all born sinners. We don’t love God with all our hearts. We don’t live as the image bearers He created us to be. We go against His purposes for us. We go our own way.
New Creations in Christ
But that’s not the end of the story. As you read with your child, take her to the story of redemption—the story of Jesus, the one who came to do what Adam could not do. Teach her about God sending his Son to take on human flesh and live the life we could not live and die the death we deserve. Teach her the gospel, the good news, that when we place our trust and faith in Jesus, when we believe that he saved us from our sins, we are remade into people who once again can reflect God’s image as intended, as we are shaped into the image of his Son, Jesus.
We now find our identity in our relationship with God, through Jesus Christ. He helps us to live for him—to reflect his image by doing the things that he does. We can now live for His glory, honoring Him in what we say, think, and do.
The Bible is the source for identity formation. It teaches us who we are and why we are here. It gives us an anchor, a foundation, that secures our identity no matter what happens around us. While the world may look for identity in jobs, relationships, feelings, or what other people say, a believer’s identity is found in God. He made us. We belong to Him. And we are to live for Him.
May the story of Scripture—creation, fall, redemption, and re-creation—be the story we teach our children so that they know, from a very young age, the answer to the question: Who are you?
