When we identify first and foremost as children of God, we are able to see ourselves as God does—individuals with eternal divine worth.
When I was five years old, I believed with the utmost confidence—as only a child can—that I was Heavenly Father’s favorite child. As I grew older, however, this overconfidence eroded to the point that I struggled with even identifying as a child of God. I felt that such an identity wasn’t special because everyone else was also one of his children.
So instead I began to focus more on my worldly identifiers. I identified as a good student, a writer, a hard worker, a sister, etc. Despite trying to use temporal things to define myself, I still struggled with this central question: who am I?
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In his address “Choices for Eternity” from the May 2022 worldwide devotional, President Russell M. Nelson answers this pivotal question by explaining that “worldly identifiers will never give you a vision of who you can ultimately become. They will never affirm your divine DNA or your unlimited, divine potential.”
It was only after I came to realize that I was not just a child of God but an individual child of God that I began to understand my divine worth.
Prioritizing my identity as God’s child does not mean that my other labels are unimportant or untrue. But by identifying first as a child of God, I am able to focus on my eternal worth above any other identifiers. As President Nelson explains, “If any label replaces your most important identifiers, the results can be spiritually suffocating.”
Just as I could not truly understand who I was until I saw myself as an individual child of Heavenly Father, we will all find it hard to see our divine worth and potential if we don’t recognize our eternal value. As President Nelson says, “Your potential is divine. With your diligent seeking, God will give you glimpses of who you may become.”
To learn more about identifying as a child of God, read President Russell M. Nelson’s address “Choices for Eternity” from the May 2022 worldwide devotional.
Source: ChurchofJesusChrist
—Jennifer Fletcher, Latter-day Saint Insights
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Find more insights
To learn more about what it means to be one of God’s children, watch “Our True Identity” by Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf.
Discover what your purpose is as a child of God in Elder M. Russell Ballard’s devotional address “Children of Heavenly Father.”