The Dangerous Lie of Making Yourself

What does the cultural narrative tell us and our kids about what we are to believe about who we are? How and where do we find our identity? Is who we are a given? Or is who we are someone or something we have the responsibility and privilege to create? In her helpful new book, “Self-Made: Creating Our Identities from Da Vinci to the Kardashians”, Tara Isabella Burton traces the slow slide our world has experienced, into believing we are who we make of ourselves, rather than seeing ourselves as being made by God. She summarized the issue this way: “All of us have inherited the narrative that we must shape our own path and place in this life and that where and how we were born should not determine who and what we will become.” In effect, Burton is reminding us that in today’s world, we are to lean into self-sovereignty, rather than living under God’s sovereignty. Parents, this is one of the most dangerous lies our kids can believe. Are you telling them the truth?