As the father and his young adult daughter sat down to talk, she tried to express what she was going through, saying:
I’m so confused about who I am and where I’m going in life. When I was a child, life seemed simpler. Now my friendships seem to come and go. The dreams I had for my career haven’t been working out the way I hoped. I look inside and ask myself who I really am, but I’m not so sure anymore. I search my heart to try and discover what my passions are and where I should go next in life, but there, too, it all feels hazy and uncertain.
As the father listened to his daughter, he felt her pain and confusion. He loved her dearly. Yet he was struck by how much she had been influenced by that trend he had noticed in many places, the tendency to look within for a sense of identity, purpose, and meaning in life. As a Christian father, he slowly and gently considered how he might begin to lift her eyes from herself to the God who had created, redeemed, and sanctified her, and to the places God had put her in life to serve others. It would seemingly be a long journey.
Two big questions people in the modern world often struggle with have to do with their identity and purpose. Who am I? How do I find direction? What makes me, me? What should I aim at in life? It seems to me that young people especially, although not exclusively, face a lot of uncertainty here. Where do we look to find answers to these big questions?
In previous generations, there was generally more stability and clarity here. People commonly lived in tight-knit families and communities and often followed in the footsteps of their fathers and mothers. Often these days, this is not the case. On the one hand, there are more opportunities than ever before, and some people find relief in not being tied to a predetermined path laid out for them. Yet, on the other hand, this apparent freedom and variety of choice can be overwhelming and disorienting. As a way of trying to find some clarity in this landscape, people are often now encouraged to look inward to their own feelings, expression, or sense of self for answers to the big questions. Yet in my experience, this rarely results in more clarity and peace, but rather in more confusion and anxiety.
When a man came and asked Jesus about what was most important in the Law, Jesus pointed to the fact that we live as human beings in two fundamental relationships—to God and to our neighbor (Matthew 22:37–40)—and that the whole Law is summed up by devoted love in those two directions. True human life, in other words, according to Jesus, consists in finding harmony within those two relationships. The problem is that we can’t do this on our own. We fail in both respects, to love God and to love others. This is why Jesus came not only to teach about the true human life but to live it on our behalf. In His life, death, and resurrection, He established a right relationship with God for us that He invites us to share. By faith in Christ and Baptism in His name, we receive the gift of being God’s beloved children and so find a secure new identity. This frees us from the need to earn God’s favor so that we can devote ourselves to serving our neighbor in love and find new purpose as well.
This is the true human life for which God created us and offers compelling answers to those two big questions we struggle with today. Who am I? As a baptized and believing Christian, I can say confidently that I am a child of God and nothing in this world can change that. This is a secure identity located outside of my own sense of self—a sense that can wax and wane depending on circumstances. How do I find direction? I look to the people God has put in my life, and I love and serve them as Christ has for me. This doesn’t answer every question, as life continues to be complicated and messy also for the follower of Jesus. But it does answer those big questions. We don’t need to look inside ourselves for identity and purpose—we can lift our eyes and look up to God in faith and out to our neighbor in love.