“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
It’s one of the first questions people ask us as little children. Truth be told, it doesn’t seem to matter very much what the answer is. Teacher? Doctor? Dinosaur hunter? The important thing seems to be that, even at three or four years old, we are already figuring out who we are as individuals and forging our paths into adulthood.
As we age, we are met with advice to find ourselves, and if we try that for a while we might start to categorize ourselves. We might be free spirits, or businesswomen, or life-long learners, or homemakers. We start throwing our enneagram type and our horoscope into the mix, desperately trying to sort out and define what makes each one of us unique.
We can become obsessed with finding our identities.
Throughout my twenties, I watched – admittedly with some jealousy – as many of my friends slipped easily into their chosen roles. Some friends boasted on instagram of their high-flying music careers or their exciting new job opportunities. Others shared their latest homemaking achievements – knitting a sweater, baking sourdough, harvesting their garden. They all seemed to know exactly who they should be, and I thought that if I could just do whatever I needed to find my own identity, I would be happy and fulfilled.
I was trying to connect my identity to my achievements.
For years, I thought that I just needed to be the very best collaborative pianist and vocal coach possible and land a spot in a major opera house or prestigious university. But I faced enough burn-out and rejection that I ultimately left my music career behind. After that I thought that maybe I just needed to be a mother. I had always dreamed of having children, so maybe I would feel fulfilled when my first baby was born. But then I had a miscarriage.
My chosen identities failed me. My achievements failed me.
Over the years, even as I pursued my different job opportunities and personal goals, I knew that I was missing the mark – and not just because I would never be able to do enough to acquire happiness or success. I was missing the mark because I kept forgetting that my true identity rests in Christ.
Remembering my identity in Christ will probably be a lifelong process for me. Whenever I come up against obstacles my first instinct is to complain and my second instinct is to stubbornly fight to get what I want. But Scripture reminds me that there is a better way. Galatians 3:26-27 says that “in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” I belong to the Lord, and everything else is superfluous.
If you are a Christian, you don’t need to find yourself – you are a child of God. This identity doesn’t rest on achievements. Your place in the world does not rely on the labels you create for yourself. No matter your responsibilities, no matter your passions, no matter your successes or failures – you are a child of God.
This is a beautiful truth that I have tried to remember throughout life’s twists and turns. But I’m a Type A perfectionist and overachiever with a fierce independent streak. I thrive on accomplishment and the satisfaction of a job well-done. I struggle every day to accept that it is enough for me to be a child of God. Thankfully, I have these earlier verses from Galatians 3 to remind me that there’s nothing extra I need to do: “Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (Galatians 3:23-26). Before Jesus’ death and resurrection, we were all caught in a cycle of trying (and failing) to keep the law – a lifestyle of doing. But now that we have Christ, we need only believe in order to be “sons of God” – a lifestyle of being.
I was blessed to witness the baptism of my nephew recently. He was only three weeks old at the time, and if you’ve ever met a newborn, you won’t be surprised to hear that he did nothing to earn his place in God’s kingdom. He could barely lift his head up, but there he was – a newly baptized child of God. Fully dependent on his parents, the only thing he could do was be. In many ways, we are all helpless infants in the eyes of our all-powerful God. We can’t earn our standing with God any more than my baby nephew can.
James 2 famously tells us that faith without works is dead (James 2:26). In addition to our identities as children of God, we were all created with unique personalities, talents, and interests. (And for the record, I do know my enneagram type and I’ve taken a Meyers-Briggs test more than once.) We each have different callings and vocations, as mothers, sisters, friends, missionaries, teachers, pharmacists…the list goes on. So by all means, go to work and mother your children and bake your bread and earn your degree and do it all to the glory of God! But as your circumstances change and your place in society evolves, remember that you are not dependent on your callings and vocations. Your deeper identity is unchangeable.
Each one of us is fully and intimately known by God, as we see in Psalm 139:13-16.
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
The Lord has written your future. So what do you want to be when you grow up?
When I was six or seven I wanted to be an archaeologist. When I was twelve I wanted to be a piano teacher. When I was fifteen I wanted to be a homeschooling mom of 10. (Spoiler alert: none of these things have panned out yet.) I mentioned my music career earlier, and to be honest, I don’t even really think of myself as a musician anymore. I did become a mother, and these days I spend a lot of time reading board books and making snacks and washing endless amounts of dirty dishes and growing a new baby bump. These activities are important to me and I’m grateful for them, but they don’t have to define me.
Someday my children will grow up, and my role as a mother will change. Maybe someday I’ll end up working a job I can’t stand just to pay the bills. Maybe I’ll lose my memory or my ability to walk. My point is that I don’t know what or who I will be in ten years or fifty. I don’t even know what tomorrow will bring. But I can rest in the knowledge that I will remain a child of the God who knows me.
“For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” (Romans 14:8)
