Helping Kids Discover Their God-Given Purpose

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In today's episode, we tackle the question: "What is my primary purpose?" Learn how to guide your child biblically in finding their identity and understanding their God-given purpose in a culture that promotes self-creation. Join Elizabeth Urbanowicz as she dives deep into equipping children with a solid foundation in the truth of the biblical worldview.

Transcript

Note: The following is an auto-transcript of the podcast recording.

Hello friends. Today's podcast question says, what should I say to a child who asks what their primary purpose is? How can I biblically help them find their identity? Now this question might be a shorter question, but it's a huge one because this is a question that our culture is wrestling with majorly because our culture just says that we can craft our own purpose and our own identity, that everything in this world is plastic and we can just make it whatever we want to be. We can make ourselves whoever we want to be. Where as Christians, we know that this simply isn't true. So that's what we're going to dive down deep into today.

For those of you I haven't met before, my name is Elizabeth Urbanowicz and I'm the host of the Foundation Worldview Podcast where we seek to answer your questions so that you can equip the children that God has placed in your care to carefully evaluate every idea they encounter and understand the truth of the biblical worldview.

Now, as we think about helping our children understand what their purpose is and what their identity is, we need to make sure that we understand this because we can't help our children understand something that we don't understand as well. Now, biblically, our core identity, who we are at the core is fixed. It is determined by God, where there are other parts of our identity that are up to us to determine. And so a portion of Scripture that I think makes this really clear is in the first chapter of Genesis. In Genesis chapter one, verses 26 through 28, these verses read, "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 creatures and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female, he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

Now, these three verses talk about how God created humans and who he created them to be and what he created them to do. Now in these verses it's really clear that the fixed part of our identity, the parts that we do not get to choose first, is bearing God's image. We don't get to choose whether or not we bear God's image. That is how God designed us. Each and every human is an image bearer of the holy God. It's also clear that as God's image bearers, we have been designed as specifically male or specifically female. We do not get to choose our maleness or our femaleness. That is something that is fixed. So according to this passage, these two things are fixed being God's image bearers and being male or female.

Now, the portions that are up to us is how we as God's distinctly male or distinctly female image bearers, how we fulfill our role in the command to fill the earth and subdue it. Many of you listening out there are moms, and right now in this phase of your life, you are fulfilling that command by literally having been fruitful and multiplying and you're filling the earth and subduing it by raising the next generation of children. Some of you listening out there are in a ministry context and you are working with children in a ministry context. And so the way that you are being faithful at filling the earth and subduing it is by helping parents disciple their children, well, helping them teach the Bible to their children. Others of you listening, you have another job. You might be an accountant. And the way that you are filling the earth and subduing it is by helping people keep track of their finances. Someone out there might be a general contractor. You're filling the earth and subduing it by building houses, homes where people can live and be sheltered from the elements and raise families in a safe way. Each and every one of us is fulfilling this command to fill the earth and subdue it in a different way.

Now, there is some element of fixed nature to this in that if a male is listening to this podcast, you cannot fill the earth and subdue it by being a mom because you are male. So you cannot be a mom. I used to always tell my students that I am five feet, nine inches. I do not have the body of a gymnast. So no matter how hard I tried, I'm also not very coordinated. I never could have made the US women's Olympic gymnastics team because that is just not how I am gifted. So yes, there are some limitations to how we can fill the earth and subdue it, but by and large, much of that is left up to us. So again, this fixed nature of we bear God's image as being distinctly male or female, and then we have a lot of freedom in how we can fulfill the command to fill the earth and subdue it. So claiming that our identity is completely up to us as our culture does is a lie. We cannot change the fact that we bear God's image and we cannot change the fact that we are male or that we are female.

However, on the other end of the spectrum, claiming that every part of our identity is fixed is also wrong. This was a big error of the Catholic church during the Middle Ages. That the Catholic church just held this worldview that every single thing about a person was fixed. For example, if someone was born a peasant, they would never be able to get out of that state of being a peasant because that was what God had ordained for them. If someone was born into a family that ran a specific trade, maybe they were shoeing horses. Actually, I don't even know if horses were shoed back in the middle ages. That was just an example. If they were a woodworker or they were a cobbler or something like that, that was what God had assigned to them in life, and that was the trade they were going to continue in. Where the Catholic church in the Middle Ages took this fixed nature of identity and took it way beyond the bounds of what God has revealed in Scripture. That yes, there are these fixed parts of our identity, things about us, we cannot change. It is what God has ordained, but then we have tons of freedom in how we fulfill the command to fill the earth and subdue it. So we need to make sure that we ourselves as adults have a firm understanding of identity and what is revealed in Scripture and what is not.

Then how do we help our children understand this? How do we help a child understand who they are according to God's word? For those of you who have taken the children in your care through our God's Good Design curriculum here at Foundation Worldview, you know that is exactly what we're seeking to do in that curriculum. We have a 30 lesson curriculum where we build a biblical understanding of who our children are and then what is God's good design for them as humans? What is God's good design for gender? What is God's good design for sexuality, marriage and family? So if you haven't checked out that curriculum yet, highly recommend that you do that.

Now, what we do in the first unit of that curriculum that I think is really important for us to do with any child as we're trying to help them figure out what their identity is, is we have an entire unit on design. The first eight lessons in that curriculum are focused on the concept of design. And so we train kids to recognize what design is. We say that design is a purposeful plan and we give them different images and they're just supposed to recognize, does this image show something that is designed or something that is just accidental? And then after we've gotten good at that, then we show them how their bodies and their minds show incredible design. That the systems that God has placed in our bodies show incredible design as well as the way our minds work.

Then we help them see that anytime we're looking at something that was designed, knowing and following the designer's design is best, and we use examples of something like a kite. You know how a kite, it always works best when a kite is used according to its design or the example of a glass to drink a liquid out of. It's always best when it's used according to its design, and we make the connection to us. That we need to figure out what God's design is and what he's revealed in his word about that design, and then follow that design because God is our designer and he knows best what we were designed to do. So I'm going to go through now some big truths from this curriculum, from this God's good design curriculum that you can go over with your children as you're trying to help ground their identity in what the Bible has revealed about them.

So in the second unit of that God's Good Design curriculum, we focus on God's good design for us as individuals. So the first thing that we lay the groundwork for is something that faithful Foundation Worldview podcast listeners should already know. That we need to help our children understand that God designed us in his image, and so we need to ground them in this understanding of Genesis 1:27, which again says, "so God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female, he created them." So God designed us in his image. Then second, God designed us as male and female, again, grounded in Genesis 1:27, that these are two unchanging parts of our identity, that we are God's image bearers, and we are designed as distinctly male or distinctly female.

Then the third truth that we go through in that curriculum that we should just all go through with our children is that God designed us as body and soul, and we help kids understand this truth through reading. Genesis chapter two, verse seven, which says, "then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathes into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature." And we talked through, okay, how did God create Adam? That's right out of dust, God created Adam's physical body, and then what did God do? He breathes into his nostrils the breath of life, and then the Hebrew word, I'm going to say it wrong because I'm not a Hebrew scholar, but the Hebrew word that is translated in this verse as living creature is nephesh, which is the word that is consistently translated as "soul" throughout the rest of the Old Testament. So we help our kids understand God designed us as body and soul, that both the physical part of us and the metaphysical part of us were created by God and are inherently valuable.

Then the fourth truth that I think we need to teach our children is that ultimately God designed us for His glory. That that is the purpose of all God's creation. In Psalm 19, it says, "The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim his handiwork." And so all of God's creatures, all of every part of God's creation was designed to bring God glory. So to help children understand that our purpose is to bring God glory, we take them through several passages of Scripture. Isaiah 43, verse seven says, "everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory," and we have the kids, just listen to that verse and say, okay, listen to the next verse and see what is similar about this next verse. Then we take them to Matthew five, verse 16, which says, "let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." And then the final passage we take them to is first Corinthians 10, verse 31, which says, "So, whatever you or drink," or sorry. "So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God." And we say, okay, what is the verse? Or what is the word that is used throughout all three of those verses? That's right. It's glory. And so we talk about how we as humans, we're designed to bring glory to God, and the way we explain it is it's like the reflection in a mirror. And so you can hold up a mirror for your child and say, who do you see in this mirror? That's right. You see yourself then say, are you actually in that mirror? Is that actually you in there? Say, no, that's not you. That's a reflection of you. It's a picture of you. It's a reflection or a picture that reminds you of who you are and what you look like. And then we can say it's like that with God. Our purpose on this earth is to show others a picture of who God is so that we point others to God and say, when we obey God's commands, we give others a true reflection of him. And so we give glory to God. When we disobey God's commands, we do not give others a true reflection of him, and so we do not bring glory to God. And this is when we can bring in the gospel that no human can ultimately bring glory to God through obeying God's commands without the empowering of the Holy Spirit, that God sent Jesus to wash us clean of our sins, to reconcile us to himself, to fill us with His Holy Spirit so that we can now walk forth in freedom and we can glorify God.

And then the next thing I would recommend that you do is just talk about some of the skills and gifts that God has given your child and how your child can use that for God's glory. If your child is really good at painting, how could you do a painting that brings glory to God? Now, our children might just say, I can draw a picture of things in the Bible, or I can draw a picture of a cross. Yes, these are ways that they can glorify God, but we don't want to get them so narrow focused thinking that the only things that they can do in the arts are things that directly speak Jesus' name, doing a beautiful painting of a mountain or a painting of a person or a painting of a family. These are all grounded in the biblical worldview. And so just by creating beautiful art, we're reminding people of God who is beautiful, who gave us beauty.

If our child is athletic, how can we glorify God in the way that we play athletics? There's the moral aspect of playing fair, being kind to others. Those are really important things. And then there's also just using the body that God has given us for his glory, enjoying movement, excelling at the skill, different skills in athletics. So we want to talk through with our kids, how can we use the skills that God has given us for His glory to show other people a true reflection of who God is? And I would encourage all of us just to make this a daily discussion in our households, how can we bring glory to God today just so it's something that our children are naturally thinking of. It might take months or years, decades for them to really grasp that their primary purpose is to bring glory to God. But the more we bring it up, the more we discuss it, the more deeply ingrained that is going to be in them, and who knows how the Holy Spirit will use that weeks, months, years, even decades down the road.

Well, that's a wrap for this episode, but if you have a question that you would like for me to answer on a future Foundation Worldview podcast, you can submit that by going to FoundationWorldview.com/podcast. Also ask that you would just invest a few seconds that it takes to give this content a five star rating if you think it's five star content. As we leave this time together, my prayer for you is the same as always, that no matter the situation in which you and the children God has placed in your care, find yourselves that you would trust that God is working all things together for your good. By using all things to conform you more into the image of His Son. I'll see you next time.