What is your identity? What makes you, you?

There are so many key components that make up my life—I’m a husband, parent, full-time employee, football fan, Bible teacher . . .

But if I find my core identity in any or all of these things, I’m on very shaky ground.

Because they can change, break, or turn upside down, and leave me feeling very insecure about who I truly am and what my place in the world is.

This is particularly true for parents. Our kids take up so much of our time and headspace. Is it any wonder that so many of us find our identity in being a parent?

One couple I know recently had another baby because the mum was totally stressed out about what she was going to do, now that her older kids were at school full-time. Having another kid seemed a great way to keep her stay-at-home-mum identity intact.

If my identity and security is found in my parenting, then I become reliant on my kids’ behaviour to make me feel good about myself.

We may not all be as extreme as that. The point is: being a parent can easily take over how we view and value ourselves.

If my identity and security is found in my parenting, then I become reliant on my kids’ behaviour to make me feel good about myself.

If they are polite, kind and patient, my place and purpose in the world feels rock solid!

But when they’re running wild and driving me crazy—suddenly I’m having more than just a bad day; I’m having a bad life! I’m questioning who I am and wondering if I’ve messed everything up.

My whole world seems to crumble because my security depends on my parenting going well. That’s what happens when parenting makes me, me.

What Should My Identity Be?

I was reading Acts 8 recently. This passage doesn’t instinctively come to mind when one looks for biblical wisdom for parents. However, it has a surprisingly appropriate application for parents.

In Acts 8:5–17, the gospel was preached in Samaria. Lots of people trusted Jesus (v. 12), yet the Holy Spirit didn’t “come on any of them” (v. 16).

It wasn’t until the apostles Peter and John came from Jerusalem and laid hands on the people that God finally gave them the Holy Spirit (v. 17). This was a very odd, one-off situation. So why did it happen?

To understand the story, we need to realise the Samaritans and Jews were deep-rooted enemies. They hated each other.

So, in delaying giving His Spirit until the apostles arrived, God gave both the Jews and the Samaritans a powerful picture: they had both received the same Spirit (Ephesians 4:4). They had been given the same brand new identity in God’s kingdom: children of God.

Who are we on our worst days when everything’s going wrong and we feel like failures? Children of God!

There was now more about them that was the same than there was different. Their new identity as children of God underpinned, overshadowed, and superseded anything else that might be true about them.

The encouragement for us from this story is that we, too, have received this same Spirit and identity.

Who are we? Children of God. But who are we first and foremost? Children of God. But who are we on our worst days when everything’s going wrong and we feel like failures? Children of God!

What Makes Me, Me?

Paul wrote about this subject in Galatians, when he said, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).

We could apply to that list anything in our lives that we use to identify who we are: there is neither stay-at-home-mum nor full-time dad; there is neither parent nor grandparent, etc.

Being parents is a big part of our lives—but it is not who we are. We are God’s children, His own special people!

If we could see ourselves first and foremost as God’s children, I believe that would change everything about, well, everything.

Being parents is a big part of our lives—but it is not who we are.

On good days or bad days, when our kids are at home all day or at school, or even when they leave home, our identity and security would remain intact.

Because being God’s children doesn’t rely on how stable our life is or how well things are going. Rather, it relies solely on God who has given us this new life as a gift through His Holy Spirit. And He does not change. Ever! (Hebrews 13:8)

I know that seeing ourselves as we truly are—God’s special people, secured forever by Jesus—won’t change the parenting battles we have to face. But it will change how we approach those battles and survive them.

I don’t parent as a parent, but as a child of God.

Knowing that God makes me who I am gives me a foundation, purpose, vision, security and focus for my parenting. I don’t parent as a parent, but as a child of God.

Which means I do it prayerfully, relying on Him and prioritising reading my Bible and hearing His loving assurance in its words—even on busy days.

What a rock-solid confidence and hope I have when I know my place relies on Him and not me. What patience and perseverance it gives me. What energy and love for parenting!

This week, during your devotion time with God, why not spend some time talking to Him about who you really are? Read Romans 8:14–17 and Galatians 4:6–7, and remind yourself of what Jesus secured for you when He died and rose again, making you a co-heir with Him of God’s kingdom. You are so much more than a parent!