What Does it Mean to Find Your Identity in Christ?
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How can we help our children understand and embrace their identity in Christ? I'm John Fuller with Dr. Danny Huerta, who heads up the Focus on the Family Parenting team. And Danny, finding my identity in Christ is something I'm not sure I have fully grabbed onto and fully understood. How do we get our kids to grab onto that? Yes, it's a lifelong process. And that's what we've talked about in our home, that you'll find bits and pieces of

as you take on new roles in your life. As a father, I've discovered more of my identity in Christ. As a husband, I've discovered more about my identity in Christ. As a teen, I did. As a professional here at Focus on the Family, as a vice president, and then as a friend to people I know, and then as a therapist.

Different pieces come together, and I truly believe we'll discover our identity in Christ when we go into heaven. We'll fully discover that. But in the meantime, we're getting bits and pieces put together in this giant puzzle of understanding what that is and being fueled by it.

But it's the looking for it that's the important part. And I'll tell my kids, be curious about your identity in Christ. And don't get distracted by other things that tell you to find your identity in other places. There's this discovery that you're going through. As you're pursuing Christ, he's revealing more and more about who you are. And as people give you those insights, pray about it. Take those in and

And really, ultimately, you were created to bring glory to God, and that's where you're going to find the fullness of what that identity is. It's been great conversations. It's complex, yet simple, in that there's a purpose as a child of God, and that's to serve Him and to serve others.

Well, we're going to listen now to a further elaboration on this topic of helping your child find their identity in Christ as Kerry Kempakis spoke with Focus President Jim Daly. Let me ask you about identity in Christ because we talk a lot about that as Christians, especially for our kids when they leave the home. The one thing that they need is to know who they are in Christ. I guess the question would be how do we make sure that we can give our daughters the

that identity in Christ with a world that is crushing that. I mean, you believe those things. All that, you know, again, constant drumbeat of counter-Christian culture. So how do we do that? What's practical? Some moms might even say, I don't even know how to start providing an identity in Christ. What does that mean?

You know, I think so many things that we do as Christian parents, and I would tell my kids these Bible verses when they were younger, like, find your identity in Christ. And honestly, I'm not sure if I knew exactly what it meant myself, but as I grew up, I started to see, you know, you've got to find your identity in Christ. And sometimes they don't understand why until something heartbreaking happens in their life. Yeah.

So what I've seen is, you know, girls especially, they have a tendency to put other things on the pedestal. They have a tendency to put their friendships on the pedestal or their boyfriend on a pedestal or their place on a team. And so that becomes what they're building their identity on. And so my point is, okay, if you're building your identity on your beautiful dance skills or your ability to, you know, go, you know, shoot hoops and be a great basketball player, what happens when you break a leg and you're out of the sport and you can't do that anymore?

What's going to happen to your sense of self-worth and self-esteem? And so it really is Jesus is the only safe place to find your identity because even your friend group, I mean, and I tell parents, your kids won't believe you until it happens. Like they might have to go through a lonely season of friendship. Their friends drop them or a boyfriend breaks up with them or they break up with their boyfriend. Something on that pedestal fails them. And only then will they start to see why they've got to put their faith in something that's never going to change again.

And I think if we do that as Christians, that's where we get our confidence. And that's where we can be strong no matter what circumstances are going on in our life. But for our children, that they often have to learn the hard way, just like the rest of us, of why finding our identity in Christ matters, because it's just a solid rock you can count on. And even when the things in your life change, which they will, that this is one thing that will never change or be taken away from you. And I think there's so much security in that. Yeah. Yeah.

Kerry, let me end with expectations because that's so critical to the role as mom. And I think moms, again, they set these expectations. Kids can't reach them and it creates conflict.

And I guess it's that balance between too low of an expectation. It's good to have expectations. But if they're so high, kids can leave that home at 18, 19, feeling like they just never measured up. And I'm mindful of the fact that so many daughters probably leave homes where they'd

They didn't have that affirmation. They always fell short or often fell short. And that begins to take away from that identity in Christ. So at the end here, just speak to the mom who's always concerned. And maybe their daughter's just never hitting it quite right. How does she retool her outcome skills?

or her expectation in what her daughter can do. Right. I mean, for me, it always goes back to prayer and just trusting God's vision for your family. To me, I think that we live in an age where, you know, the Bible tells us that without a vision, the people will perish. So it's good to have a vision for our lives, but I believe we need to go to God first to

God, help me see this vision, what you want to do through my children. But so often we're going to social media or we're going to other families and we're saying, well, this is what this family looks like. Our family should look like that too. And so it's these expectations we have in our head or it's the expectation of how this holiday should look. And when it doesn't end up picture perfect or this family vacation, we miss the joy in that.

because we're so mad and upset that things didn't go according to plan. Instead of seeing the humor and the joy in the situation and just knowing that things are going to go wrong, that life is not always going to live up to our expectations. But if we trust God and we trust what He's creating through our children and our family, my dad always told me this, and I tell my children, I'm like, you just do your best and you leave the results to God.

And there's so much freedom in that. And I think that, you know, I'm trusting him. I'm trusting him, the plan that he has for your life. And I'm going to thank him in advance for that.

And so I don't try to have like these. I try to expect them to do their best and expect them to live up to their their full potential. But I also leave room for failure and I leave room for God to work in their life and to surprise us in good ways. And the best way that I heard this put, I think a lot of moms, a friend told me this. She's like, I see a lot of moms live in a state of preservation. They just want to preserve what's there. They see the friend group changing and they want to preserve it. So they're buying tickets to concerts and

taking vacations and they just want to force it to stay together. But we're saying, you know, sometimes things aren't meant to stay together. Sometimes changes just happen. And on that other side, if you're trusting God, it's like that freedom of living in Christ and seeing like, okay, this friend group didn't work out, but look what it opened the door to this new opportunity or this new friend group. But you really, and as moms, we have to really trust that God is working still, even when it doesn't feel like it. And it doesn't look like our vision for their life, but it's even better if we can trust Him.

Well, Danny, this seems to be one of those topics where we're talking about the kids, but actually we're talking about parents. We're talking about not just having expectations for them, but kind of my expectations for myself.

And I think it can be difficult. We tend to put pressure on ourselves, maybe because of the way we were raised. I mean, I grew up in a pretty authoritarian home, and it's like, do what I say, do it now. Don't give me a reason to question your obedience. So I brought some of that to the table.

And then I was uncomfortable with the realization of what I was doing. Yes. So there's a big mix here, and I'm not even sure what I'm asking about, but Kerry and Jim talked about some things, and they were talking about

uh failure and and my ability to kind of handle failure against a backdrop of expectations yes and that's where grace comes in we've talked about that in the show that grace is so important even for ourselves and our parenting but we were born into a society that grades you

From the time that you begin school and go into college and potentially in the professional world, there's grading. There's a grading system. How are you doing? And it gives you measurements. With your kids, we want to find something to measure how we're doing because we want to do well. Most of us want to do really well in our parenting. And there are a lot of unknowns and gray areas as I parent. And if we're comparing to another family...

then if my kids aren't acting like that person's kids, I must be doing something wrong. Is somebody not telling me what I'm doing wrong? And then you're guessing and going, man, you're putting pressure on yourself, thinking that my kid's misbehavior is a direct reflection of me parenting poorly. But really, misbehavior means they need your parenting, they need your guidance. And the more you are calm...

in their behaviors, the more attuned and aware you'll be as to what they need. The more anxious you become, the more self-centered and self-conscious you become and more disconnected from that child and you become more reactive. And so the idea here is

is if you're comparing yourself to other families, I would tell you stop right now. Because what you're doing is creating a more difficult environment for you as a parent, and it will create burnout. What you can do is begin to look at those behaviors as opportunities for you to learn about your child and to patiently and calmly go into those so that you can be more attuned to what it is that they're actually needing. And the more calm you are

the more your child will meet you there.

Even if it feels long in some moments, that your child may be in chaos for 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 minutes, if you remain calm, you'll see over time your child will begin to meet you there. And where you get off track is your expectations coming in, that I need to be in control. I need to have this perfect answer for my kids. I need to be better than the parents around me. And that's not true. Be relational. Be present with your child.

And pray for that wisdom in those moments, and you'll see how that will transform your parenting over time. Yeah, some listeners might have heard me chuckle a little bit there because control the situation, command and control. That was kind of how I used to be, and I've learned to kind of just relax and not get so upset. They're all adults, so it is a little easier now.

But boy, I hope that this episode has encouraged you in your parenting journey. This is not rocket science. There's not a grade.

Except, are you being faithful to do what you can today to represent Christ, to represent the loving father to your child, and to build relationship with him or her? And Kira Kampakis has collected so many wonderful parenting tips in her book, Love Her Well, 10 Ways to Find Joy and Connection with Your Teenage Daughter.

We've got that here at the ministry. Get a copy from us when you make a donation of any amount, either a monthly pledge or a one-time gift. We're listener-supported. We need your financial contributions to continue this podcast and so many other things that we're doing here at Focus to equip parents. So donate today as you can. The links are in the show notes.

And we're also going to link over to details about our Brio magazine, which is a fantastic resource for your teen daughter. It's a great influence for teen girls. And you can sign up to subscribe in the show notes. Well, next time we'll hear from Peggy Sue Wells and Pam Farrell. We'll share how single moms can find encouragement in God's love.

On behalf of Dr. Danny Huerta and the entire team, I'm John Fuller, and thanks for listening to the Focus on the Family Parenting Podcast. Your marriage can be redeemed, even if the fights seem constant, even if there's been an affair, even if you haven't felt close in years. No matter how deep the wounds are, you can take a step toward healing them with a Hope Restored Marriage Intensive.

Our biblically-based counseling will help you find the root of your problems and face challenges together. We'll talk with you, pray with you, and help you find out which program will work best. Call us at 1-866-875-2915.