Who Do I Belong To? Teaching Our Kids the Comfort of Gospel Belonging
Faithful Parenting in a Sexualized World
If you think about it, we live in the most prosperous and peaceful era in the history of humanity. We have more comfort, more convenience, and more access to just about everything than any generation before us. And yet, our world feels more anxious, more isolated, and more confused than ever. It’s not just a feeling but the rates of anxiety, depression, and loneliness are soaring, especially among younger people.
Emily Esfahani Smith, in her book The Power of Meaning, puts words to what a lot of us sense: we’re in a crisis of meaning. People aren’t just looking for happiness, they’re longing for purpose, belonging, and identity. But here’s the problem. Her book’s subtitle is telling: "Crafting a Life That Matters." The whole idea is that it’s on each of us individually, to find our meaning and make life worthwhile.
That’s a crushing weight.
St. Augustine saw this long ago when he wrote, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.1” Our kids are growing up in a world that tells them to be true to themselves and to follow their own truth. But apart from God, that freedom becomes a burden.It’s exhausting. The burden of self-belonging wears us down.
A lot of the things I say in this post, I’m drawing from Alan Noble’s work, especially his book You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World, which speaks directly into this cultural pressure. He writes:
“To be your own and belong to yourself means that the most fundamental truth about existence is that you are responsible for your existence and everything it entails.”2
Think about that. If you belong only to yourself, then every decision, every failure, every achievement, it’s all on you. That doesn’t lead to peace. It leads to anxiety. And that’s not just a secular problem. If we’re not careful, Christian parents can subtly absorb this mindset too—feeling like we have to hold everything together, define our family’s meaning, and somehow raise kids who can survive the cultural storm on their own strength.
That’s why this part of our parenting series is focused on three deeply human questions:
Who do I belong to?
Who am I?
Why am I here?
This week, we’ll start by answering the first question.
Belonging: Who Do I Belong To?
Our kids are constantly hearing a message from the world: you belong to yourself. You get to decide what’s true. You get to choose who you are. No one else has a right to define you. That’s the air they breathe, from Disney songs and Instagram influencers to school policies and TikTok trends.
Thankfully, Scripture gives us a much better answer. The Heidelberg Catechism says:
“What is your only comfort in life and in death?”
“That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.”
—Heidelberg Catechism Q1
This is one of the most beautiful truths we can teach our children. We’re not drifting through life trying to figure it all out on our own. We are not our own. We are His. Paul reminds the Corinthians:
“You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20)
That means we don’t have to invent our worth. We don’t have to perform to really matter. We don’t have to live under the illusion that we’re in charge of everything. Jesus bought us. He watches over us. And in Him, we can rest.
This truth is radically different from the cultural script:
If I belong to myself, I set the rules.
If I belong to myself, I define my truth.
If I belong to myself, I bear the weight of creating my own meaning.
What sounds like freedom is really an unbelievable burden to carry. But when we know we belong to Christ:
We are secure.
We are known.
We are loved.
Tim Keller often pointed out that modern identity is fragile because it’s based on performance. In today’s world, you’re only as good as your last success. But when your identity is grounded in belonging to Christ, you’re freed from that treadmill. You don’t have to constantly prove yourself.
Rebecca McLaughlin puts it this way: “If you are in Christ, you are loved not because of anything you’ve done, but because of what Jesus has done. You are not just accepted—you are adopted.3”
Belonging to Christ is not just a theological truth. It’s a daily anchor. And it’s one our kids need more than ever. Because they’re growing up in a world that tells them, subtly and loudly, that they belong to no one but themselves.
But we know better. We were made for more. We were made for Him.
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” —St. Augustine
When we don’t know who we belong to, we’re left to define ourselves however we can. That’s why identity becomes such a battlefield in our cultural moment. And if we think we have to make up our own identity from scratch, we’ll always feel like we’re falling short. We’ll become either proud or crushed or both, depending on the day.
And if we believe we exist for ourselves, we’ll either chase shallow pleasures or carry an unbearable weight to make our lives count. Either way, we’ll miss the joy and rest that come from living out of our God-given purpose.
So yes, the world is telling our kids they are their own, but the gospel tells a better story. And that better story starts with belonging.
Over the next two weeks, we’ll talk about what it means to help our children find their identity in Christ and how to teach them that their purpose is bigger than themselves.
St. Augustine, Confessions, Book I, Chapter 1: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
Alan Noble, You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World (IVP Books, 2021), 18.
Rebecca McLaughlin, 10 Questions Every Teen Should Ask (and Answer) about Christianity (Crossway, 2021), 25.