It doesn’t matter if you’re thirteen, thirty, or ninety-three. The one question we always have
is, “Who am I?” We may wonder about it in different ways, but it is a question we ask
throughout our lives. When we’re thirteen, we wonder who we will be when we get older.
We want to stand out from the crowd, making ourselves distinct in some way, yet we’re too
insecure to be ourselves. When we’re thirty, our character is more established. At this point,
life is more settled. We might act closer to who we really are, yet decisions about family and
career make us wonder whether we are who we expected to be at thirteen. By the time we get
to be ninety-three, we find ourselves asking the question this way, “Who was I?” Since
identity is a question that affects every stage of life, it is important for us to understand our
True Identity, as it never really changes.
For each of us, from the time we’re born until we die, we can be sure at every moment our
true identity is, and always will be, grounded in the fact that we are created in the image of
God. In Genesis chapter one, we read that God said, “Let us make man in our image, after
our likeness.” This has far-reaching significance for every age of life. It’s a reminder that
from childhood to retirement, in school or at work, in marriage or singleness, we display the
image of God in life.
Because you display the image of God, you have meaning and purpose. You’re not here by
accident! God didn’t create you willy-nilly. He had a definite desire to have ‘you’ as part of
His creation. We could say that without your creation, the world would not be complete! In
addition to giving you meaning, He also created you with purpose. The last part of Genesis
1:26 reads, “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.”
You were created to reign and have dominion over God’s creation. This is true now and will
be true in the New Heavens. It doesn’t matter if you are thirteen or ninety-three. God created
you in His image with meaning and purpose. That’s good news for all of us, because it’s true
every day. We don’t have to search for our identity outside of Christ. In fact, only in Christ
will we find our True Identity. So, look to Christ and trust that He has created you perfectly
for His creation. Let your identity be found in Him, and you will have meaning and
purpose.