You guys will remember in Little Mermaid, Ariel, you know, she's collected all these forks. She doesn't know what they're for. Scuttle the seagull says, Oh, those are called dingle hoppers, and the humans use them to brush their hair. She's sitting at the dinner table for the first time with Prince Eric. She sees the forks.
She starts brushing her hair, and everybody's looking at her like that's not what forks are made for. We have done that with identity. We think we know what identity is for, and so we use it for our own benefit. I am what I feel, I am what I do. If we want to know what identity really is, we have to go to the person who created it and who created us, and that's God.
Okay, so we got Jonathan Holmes in the studio. Jonathan, I don't know. Do do you go by Buckeye? You're an Ohio guy. I am.
I go by everything except for Cleveland Browns. As we said earlier, so go Buckeyes, Cavs, Guardians, but uh. Put Browns a little bit lower on the list.
Well, I mean, the reason I'm asking, yeah, the Browns are way down there. And we know what down there is with the Detroit Lions all those years. Yes. You guys are living our life. In fact, you went 0-in-16 after we went 0-16 a couple years ago.
It made us feel better. A little bit of empathy. You guys have some empathy for us, nurses. But you know, we're in Michigan now and we're Ohio.
So I can't say Buckeye in that state. Oh, I know. I run for my life, you know.
So tell our listeners a little bit about because you're a father of four girls. Four girls. How old? I have 16, 14, 12, and 10.
So I'm in high school, middle school, and my youngest is pulling up the end in elementary school.
So there's never a dull day in my house. You get to talk at dinner? Rarely. Most of you guys, literally, most times at dinner, I don't need to say a word. There is so much chatter going on, which is great.
You know, when we are able to gather for dinner, it's full of life, full of questions. And It's a great thing being a girl dad. I absolutely love it. How many years have you been married? We've been married 20 years this November.
So my wife and I will be celebrating 20 years. It's a big one. It is a big one.
So we're pretty excited about it. Yeah, well, we're going to talk obviously about identity. You know, a lot of it's going to be around Grounded in Grace, your book, Helping Kids Build Their Identity in Christ. Tell our listeners what you do.
So, I serve as the executive director of a counseling center. We're based in Northeast Ohio. It's called Fieldstone Counseling. And we have brick and mortar offices in the Northeast Ohio area. We have one in Michigan, one in Columbus.
But through remote counseling, we see people all across the country, all 50 states and 26 different countries.
So it's, you know, through technology nowadays, it really has opened so many great doors for people to be able to receive help who access was a major issue for them beforehand. Yeah, and obviously this is sort of helping parents with their kids, which is huge. But identity, you tell me, isn't it at the center of Everything. I mean, every counseling appointment, every decision. Yes, I would definitely agree with you.
I think identity, and that was one of the reasons why I wrote the book, is so many kids and teens and parents were coming in to the counseling room for different issues. Maybe it was depression or anxiety or eating disorders or suicide, but you start to scratch the surface on so many of those mental health issues. And underneath all of them really are questions of identity. You know, who am I? Why am I here?
What am I supposed to be doing with my life? And I think a lot of the messages that the world has given to teens and kids today about who you are, what's the purpose of life, they're not working out for kids and teens. And so we've told kids and teens today, hey, be whoever you want to be. You know, sky's the limit. And yet our kids and teens today are facing a mental health crisis like we've never seen before.
So something's off. And I think underneath it really is this question of identity. And with the ages of your girls, you're Living this. No, we are. We definitely are.
I think so much of the book is actually for me. Ironically, when I was writing the book, you guys will get a kick out of this to get them to kind of read the book. I said, Hey, I want you to help me find any typos in the book before it was about to go to print. I just said, Hey, I want you to read the book and I want you to help me out with it. Give me some examples or give me some questions.
And it ended up, you know, serving multiple purposes, helped give me better feedback, but then really helped make the book, I think, hopefully feel very conversational and very true to life.
So, were they relating to it? I think so, especially, you know, a couple of the chapters. One of the chapters is on, you know, finding your identity in athletics. And three of my girls play basketball, and that's a big, that's a big identity maker for them. There's a lot of pressure, as we were talking about earlier, on kids today and sports.
And I just realized I could even see it in myself when, you know, going to games and certain expectations that would just creep up in your heart at the most unexpected times. And you just realize, again, it's not just kids, it's parents. We want to find our identity through our kids' performances. And so, definitely sports and then also academics. You know, being Asian American, academics is huge.
And, you know, I found myself oftentimes just putting, I think, some unnecessary pressures on my kids.
Okay, like, what's something that you would say? Not even meaning to. Yeah. You know, my kids will come home with like a B or something. I'll say, well, you know, we could do something to get that a little bit higher.
And it was so funny. One of her friends, one of my 16-year-old friends came. Over and she was spending some time with my oldest daughter. And she said, Yeah, B is like an Asian F.
So you've got to get that up to an A. And I said, No, it really is. And then I realized, okay, I had to repent internally and say, You know what? If a B is the best you can do, then, you know, a B is the best you can do. But you're right, Jonathan.
We as parents feel the pressure. We do. I remember, I think one of our sons was in soccer. I think he was four years old. And we were getting him in this little soccer league.
And one of the parents said, Oh, you better start now. Yes. Because if you don't, he's going to be so far out of it. He won't even get on a team. Four years old.
What in the world? It's crazy. Oh, it's totally wild. And when you can step outside of it and you can kind of see it in other people, and then, you know, the Lord convicts you and you're like, oh my goodness, I'm that person. I'm that parent.
You know, and you can get a good laugh out of it. But we do, you know, as parents, we can draw our identity from our kids, how they're doing, their performance on the athletic field, in the classroom, in the workplace. I mean, you know, that leads me to this question. If I'm trying to Help my son or daughter understand identity. proper even from God and from his word but I don't live it or understand it.
What do I do? And can I can I actually teach that in a way that They that's good if I don't get it. Yes, I think you can. I in the book, I talk about kind of the way that the world has approached identity. Uh, you know, historically, had been you are what you do, right?
Your family of origin. If your dad was a baker, guess what? You're going to grow up, you're going to be a baker. Bring honor to your family, just be a good person. That was kind of the old way of forming identity.
Make your parents proud, make your parents proud. I mean, that's that's what you wanted to do, and there wasn't a lot of room for creativity or kind of breaking out of the mold. You just did whatever it was your parents did and what brought them honor. And today, it's kind of switched around. You don't really listen to a person of authority, you get to choose it.
You get to dig deep into your feelings, figure out who it is that you want to be, and then go out into the world and live out that truth, right? You'll see that on the markets everywhere. Be your authentic self or live your true self.
Some of us, as parents, and some of you as listeners, you're thinking. Wait, well yeah, that's true. I I I wrote it down even. Because modern identities now listen to this. Yeah.
The in modern identity, the determiner of identity has moved from something outside of you to something inside of you. Your inner voice. You can write this down. You're quoting Jonathan. Yeah, I did.
I'm quoting over the I wrote this up. No, I'm saying I'm writing it down what he said because this is so good. Your inner voice is now the decisive factor of determining who. Who you are and what you want to be. Yeah.
Yeah. And so it's like, what do I feel? Who am I? Right. I can be whoever I want to be.
And that can sound good, but it can. It can sound good, but it has some real significant downsides. I'll give you one example: your feelings change, right? And so we're telling generations of kids and teens, hey, dig deep inside your feelings and figure out who you want to be. And we're telling three and four and five-year-olds that.
But I mean, as you guys know, I mean, kids' preferences change literally by the hour. You know, like one day they can feed them macaroni and cheese, and the next day that's like, you know, they hate that meal and they want something different.
So we're telling kids to ground their identity, the most important aspect of who they are, in something that's not stable, that's not secure.
Now, feelings are good. God made us with emotions. It's a great part of being image bearers of God, but our feelings aren't stable enough to build our entire sense of who we are. And so that outside, that outside voice, again, historically had belonged to our parents, but sometimes Parents get it wrong, as we've said earlier. That outside voice really has to be God's voice.
God's voice telling us, This is who you are. This is why I've made you. This is your purpose in life. And that's never going to change. Despite your feelings, despite your performance on the athletic court, despite the grades that you get, what college you get into, this is the truest thing about you.
And I think kids and teens really need to hear that message today. How do you communicate that specifically to your girls? Like, what's that sound like? And maybe give an example of the traditional, the modern, and then the God-given life. Yes.
Well, in the traditional identity formation process, you know, if I was talking to one of my girls, especially about grades or academics, you know, I'd say, hey, don't you want to get into a good college? Don't you want to be a good person? Like all your other friends are going to Harvard and they're going to Yale and they're going to Princeton. Don't you want to bring honor to our family and be a good person? Right.
That motivation could seep out there in that type of conversation. Parents are going to listen to that like, oh, check, that's. What I've done, okay. I know, but don't worry, there's hope. And, you know, on the modern identity side, right, we can tell.
You know, we can tell kids and teens there is a good part of, hey, you know, be who you want, pursue your dreams, but you can take that too far. And a lot of kids don't have, I think, the maturity and the wherewithal at 10, 11, 12 years old, you know, to really understand what is it that they want to pursue. And so it's all feeling-based, which because it's feeling-based, it doesn't create that stable, secure foundation.
So what we're really trying to push kids and teens towards is who is God and what does he say about you?
So, you know, just the other day, one of my girls was about to play basketball and I think she was a little down on herself from practice. And, you know, I just told her, I said, listen, at the end of the day, regardless of if you win or lose, we love you no matter what. And God loves you no matter what. Our love for you, our devotion to you, God's love for you, God's devotion towards you is not based on how many points you make, how many buckets you score. And again, you know, she kind of rolls her eyes here and there because she hears it so much, but it's that message on repeat.
All of her life that over time will eventually form a narrative in her mind that, listen, at the end of the day, God's voice has to be the loudest voice in my heart and in my mind. I mean, you feel like for her or any boy or girl. let's say middle school, high school. Yeah, of course it starts earlier. Oh, it does.
Can a parent's voice, can God's word, God's voice trumpet The voice of their peers. Yes. And even social media. Yes. And everybody else saying, Yeah, your dad may say, but the truth is, you don't score 12 tonight.
We lose and you're not going to the next level. Yes. Yes. No, I definitely think that we're in a competitive media market for sure. And our voices oftentimes do get drowned out.
And that's where I think parents have to do a little bit of an audit, you know, on what kind of voices are coming into their kids' and teens' lives. And not that you have to go, you know, live like a hermit and cut yourself off from all media, but just even a lot of times parents are really in the dark about the voices and about the narratives that are coming in. You know, they're kind of clueless as to what their kids are listening to, watching, or reading. And so maybe that's even a first step for a parent is just to know what are the narratives that my kids are listening to and taking in. And do you think those are prevalent, Jonathan, with the modern like it's everywhere?
Oh, oh, you guys, it's everywhere from the marketing of American girl dolls to young kids, you know, pick whoever it is that you want to be. To sports, to academics. It's pervasive. It's everywhere. You're even talking about video games.
Oh, my God. And what girls are wearing? And then what the dolls are looking like. Absolutely. Absolutely.
And it's one of those things where it's so subtle, you don't even recognize it because it is everywhere. From selling fast food ads to, again, one author said, culture is constantly promoting a vision of the good life. This is what the good life is. This is the life that you want to have. It's shiny.
It's exciting. It's, you know, it's not dull. It's something that you want. And that's attractive to kids. And I think if parents don't find creative and consistent ways to kind of identify those narratives and then to counterbalance those with a biblical narrative, we're going to lose the battle at the end of the day.
Yeah, it's interesting when you're talking about, you know, navigating as a parent what kind of input your kids are hearing. Yeah. I know there's other parents that say, you know, there's no danger and you're isolating them from the world. I remember when you said that. I remember our Sitting in a locker room.
With some of the quarterbacks before we're going to play the Saints.
So we're in New Orleans. Matthew Stafford's there, Sean Hill, Dan Orlaski. And Matthew Stafford makes this comment. Again, we're going to play a game in 30 minutes.
Somehow they get in this discussion about social media. And Matthew just says. I never, ever look. And what are you talking about? He goes, I don't want to know what people are saying about me.
Yeah. Or even in the news. I do not want to know. I will never. I don't have Facebook.
I don't have an account. Of course, everybody today knows his wife does. And she posts quite a bit. But I mean, I was like, way to go. Because as good as you are at this level, there's still all these people.
And our kids are fighting that worse than we are.
So to help them say, you know, it's okay to not have. I watched American Idol the other night. And Carrie Underwood literally says, I post and I ghost. And I'm like, what does she mean by that? She goes, I'll post something to help people.
I never, ever look at comments. Yeah. And I'm like, because she knows, as great as she is, there's going to be negatives. Our kids, our kids, every day, they walk down the hall and it's negative.
So their identity is being shaped by those voices, not well. One of the things I used to do when the boys were young, and you know, we'd pray, put them to bed, maybe read a book, a devotional or whatever. But I remember, I mean, they were little when I started this, maybe three or four. And I would say, I can't wait to see what God has for you. And they would say, as just a little child, is it a present?
I said, it is kind of, because when you discover who you are, Who he made you to be, but who God made you to be, and what God has put in you as your gifts and strengths. It'll be the best present you ever had. And they said, How do we get it? And I said, As you get older and you get closer to him, you'll discover it. Yes.
He'll let you know. Yes. But that's different from. Hey, you can be, it's true. I mean, there's a good part of you can be whoever you want to be, but it's really whoever God wants.
Exactly. Exactly. And I love that analogy of a president because that's really the core of gospel identity: it is a gift that is received, not achieved. It is a gift in that God gives us this identity. It's not something that we have to earn.
It's not something that we have to feel our way towards, that we have to earn our way towards, that we have to score a certain score for. It truly is a gift that He gives to us. And I actually think that that's the most freeing kind of identity because it's not something that you can lose.
So if you have a bad day, you have a bad day. And like on social media, right? If you have a bad day, it could be the end of your career. It could be the end of your life, as it were. And I think that I don't know about you guys, but I am seeing culturally a little bit of a shift where I think a lot of kids and teens are beginning to see some of the disillusionment of what the world has offered.
And you see people, you know, going without their phones. Or kind of closing social media accounts or dumb phones. Yeah, going back to dumb phones because they realize, okay, the world has promised me X and they've not delivered on it. And so maybe I need to be open to listening to my parents or going back to scripture and finding out what the Bible has to say about who I am. Talk to our listeners, especially, and help us understand what God says about our identity.
One of the things I've said as a preacher for 30 years, I probably said it way too much. Our congregation, like, okay, we know what you believe, is that I would say it this way: there's two beliefs that we all carry that determine every decision every single day. Belief one is theology. What do we believe about God? His attributes, who he is.
Belief two is identity. What do we believe about ourselves? True or false? I don't know. But I sort of said, man, if we think God's distant, angry, we're going to live in fear.
But if we see him as a loving Father who's present and encouraged, like, wow. But then at the other side, what do I believe about myself? And so when I say that, it's like, well, Then now I got to teach people what does, who is God? Who am I? So when.
People ask you our identity. Yeah. What do you say?
Well, I think your two points are absolutely critical because knowledge about God leads us to knowledge of ourselves.
So I should have given you credit in the book. I should have said Dave Wilson, these are the two truths that you need to know. I did not originate that. Probably Tim Keller or some other brain. We'll put that in the second edition.
Yeah, there you go. There you go. But, you know, the starting point for me is Genesis 1:26, where it says, Let us make man in our image. And the core part of our identity is that we are image bearers of God. And here's why that is so, I think, foundational to identity: we realize then we don't exist for ourselves or by ourselves.
We are created beings who were created by a divine creator for a purpose.
So everything that we do, everything that we say, the things that we value, the things that we love, that we're after, ultimately have to be informed by who we were created for and who we were created by.
So I give a silly illustration like this. You know, my kids all grew up watching Disney movie. And, you know, we love Little Mermaid. And you guys will remember in Little Mermaid, Ariel, you know, she's collected all these forks and she doesn't know what they're for. And so she goes up to, you know, talk to Scuttle the seagull and he says, oh, those are called dingle hoppers and the humans use them to brush their hair.
And, you know, she gets super pumped and excited and, you know, flash forward to, you know, she's sitting at the dinner table for the first time with Prince Eric and she sees the forks at the dinner set. And she picks it up and she starts brushing her hair. And everybody's looking at her like a weirdo. Like, that's not what forks are made for, right? Forks are for bringing food to your mouth to eat.
And I think we have done that with identity, right? We think we know what identity is for. And so we use it for our own benefit. Again, I am what I feel. I am what I do, whatever cultural narrative is being kind of peddled to us.
But if we want to know what identity really is, we have to go to the person who created it and who created us. And that's God.
So God gets the final say on who we are and what he says about us too. And this is another piece of identity. That I think sometimes gets missed out is that God's word to us is a good word, right?
Sometimes I think we see God's identity as somewhat being restrictive, like, okay, it's a bunch of rules and regulations. And I think we miss out on the positive vision of identity that God gives us. And in Genesis 1, 28, the very first words that God gives to Adam and Eve are words of invitation, not words of prohibition. He says, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
So God's not a God of nose, like, no, you can't do this. God's actually a God who invites us into his redemptive program to say, hey, I want you to flourish here on the earth that I've designed and created you for. It's crazy 'cause as you're talking about that, I can remember I didn't grow up going to church or in a Christian home. I had good parents. But I remember being eight years old.
I had already gone through sexual abuse, but I can remember in my bed thinking, Why am I here? I never had that thought until 20 years old. She told me that when we were first dating dating. I don't know what it was. I was like, you thought about that when you were.
I just wanted to throw a football. But I think that's a question that at some point we ask, like, why am I here? And we're looking for answers. We are. We are.
We are. I was on the phone last night with one of my daughters, and she's having a particular struggle. And she said, I just, why, what, what is all of this worth? Like, why should I keep trying in this one particular area? And we had a really good conversation.
I said, well, here's why it's worth something, right? It's worth enduring. It's worth persevering. Because on the other side of it, I think is God's good path for you. And is it going to be hard for you right now?
Absolutely. Middle school is a brutal time for girls right now, but there is something worth. Following Christ and obeying him and pressing through the hard. But those are big existential questions that people are asking. You know, why am I here?
Why did this happen? What is life for? And I think that culture, the answers that culture is putting up right now are shiny and exciting, but they fade away really quick. What do you think? What are the shiny and exciting things you think it says?
You know, I think one of the things is just live for yourself. Be whoever you want to be. And I think people hear that. And again, there's a good part about that, like pursue your dreams, et cetera. But you realize, okay, well, everybody else is also trying to pursue their dreams.
It becomes, it can become a vicious cycle of competitiveness. And everybody's trying to constantly become a better version of themselves because you realize if the goal is to be your best self or your happiest self, well, that's a never-ending journey because you could always be happier. You could always be richer. You could always be better looking. You could always be a better, you fill in the blank.
And it's kind of that. Rat race that I think is actually driving so much of the depression and the anxiety, the suicide that we're seeing is because people get to the end of the day and they realize, why am I doing all of this? Like, what is this for? They'll post something on social media and people will say horrible and hateful things about them and they kind of throw their hands up in the air and say, You know, I give up. I don't want to keep doing this.
And that's where, again, I think coming in with biblical truth about who we are can provide a stable, secure foundation for kids and teens today. I mean, I did, you know, growing up, I never probably even thought of the word identity. Right. Yeah. You know, and again, some of that was nobody's talking about it.
And I'm not saying I should or shouldn't. I just. Never even connected that my identity, and I didn't even realize it was connected to success on sports fields. I was a musician and a singer in a band.
So, you know, being approved that way. And I've shared this here before, but when Ann and I in our first year of marriage were at the University of Nebraska as a chaplain, we're on staff with crew, basically as a missionary under Athletes in Action. And now I'm being introduced. A year ago, nine months ago, I'm playing college football and I had national stats, right? Yeah.
Now I'm being introduced to, hey, this is Dave Wilson. What do you do again? Oh, he's on staff with Athletes in Action. That's it. Yeah.
And nobody knew. Oh, I used to. I know.
So I come home to my wife. This is so embarrassing. And I say to Ann, Hey, You know, nobody knows I was somebody. You know, I was pretty good. Yeah.
And I can't say it. Hey, I used to. Because I look like, you know, an insecure loser. Right. So I literally said, could you...
Like when you when you're with me, 'cause you go, Hey, by the way, you know, last year Dave was leading the nation. And you know what she says? She loves me so, yeah, honey, I'll do that for you. How lame is that? That my entire identity is what I used to do, and I'm trying to prove it.
And again, obviously, I had to go on a journey to find out what you just said. God says you're precious, you're loved, you're forgiven, you're a son of me. I mean, it's like, oh, that's a Mago Day. You're made of Miami. None of that seemed to matter.
All that matters what other people think of me. They don't care about that stuff. They care about this. Is that the normal journey for most people? You know what?
I mean, when you're. Putting it like that, I think it is, because I don't think a lot of kids and teens today are thinking about I mean, unless you've got some deep philosophical thinkers, you know, nobody's thinking, you know, in their bedroom like maybe like like like Ann. But everybody functions out of an identity. Everybody lives out an identity. You have to, right?
On April 15th, we all pay our taxes. Why? Because we live in this country and that's what the law says we have to do. I can't, you know, wake up on April 15th and say, you know what, I don't identify today as a taxpayer. I'm just going to do whatever it is I want.
Well, no, that's a part of our identity and that's what we have to do as a result.
So all of us live and act out of an identity. It's just oftentimes it's more back burner. We're not thinking about it until we talk about it, which is actually one of the reasons why I think if parents were to talk about it, maybe it would move to the front burner with kids' minds. And maybe kids would begin to say, maybe teens would say, okay, why do I do what I do? Or who am I doing these things for?
And one of the things that I try to say in the book is, before you ask, who am I, ask whose am I? Because that's actually the question behind the identity question. I can't answer who am I until I first know whose am I. And I belong to the Lord. I'm created by the Lord.
Well, play that out even more. Because agree or disagree with this statement, almost everybody. I'll say everybody. That way you can either agree or disagree. Everybody lives for identity or from identity.
Oh, 100% agree. Yeah. So what's it mean? Everybody is moving and operating out of some type of identity information, right? It's like the operating system that we have on our MacBooks, on our iPads, on our phones.
It's just constantly there running in the background. And it informs the decisions we make. It informs why you make certain choices in the day. It informs the words that you say to the people that you're interacting with. Are you going to be more self-focused and about your dreams?
Are you going to be more other-centered or others-focused? It informs how you steward your time, your energy, your resources. It helps inform what's most important to you. What's really worth you giving your time, energy, and attention to. That's all coming from questions of identity.
If sports, yeah, if sports is the most important thing, and if stats and numbers are the most important thing to you, inform the core sense of who you are. Are then every free moment's going to be on that driveway shooting hoops, right? You're not going to have time for friends, you're not going to have time for anything else. That will become your life. And you might not know it at that moment, but what's driving that again is that sense of identity.
I am what I do, or I am what I feel. I remember, I think it was probably 15 years ago, I was leading a high school small group. And which was fun for me because we had three sons. They were all in high school. And man, I was shocked by the pressure these girls were feeling.
They were busier than my friends who were in their 40s. I mean, like, what are these girls? Like, they have so much pressure. They're all in sports. They're all in some competitive or cheer or something.
We're in a neighborhood where our high school was very strong academically. And the pressure that they felt with schoolwork, with getting into the best colleges in the country. And I, and you're right there. Yeah, you are there. And you're probably seeing it in your girl's friends.
Yes. But as you're talking about how identity formation is enslaving, like it can be the modern identity formation, is fragile. Yes. And it's performative. And I thought that as I as I was reading your book, I thought.
That's what they were all feeling. Yeah. That push toward, and ultimately you say it's an illusion. Oh, it is.
So I'll give you a great illustration on that.
So Taylor Swift, who has got to be the most authoritative figure on all things. Taylor Swift. I don't know if you've heard of her or not, but in 2022, she gave the commencement speech at New York University. And she has this great line in her speech. She says, here's the best news I want to give all of you.
She says, you can be whatever it is that you want to be. And then she says, but now I want to give you the bad news. She says, you have to figure that out all by yourself. And it was kind of this aha moment of like, you know, even a blind squirrel can find a nut. You know, she says something that's really, truly profound and she probably doesn't even know it.
But that, that captures that dynamic of identity. It sounds so promising. It sounds so freeing, but it is so enslaving. Because guess who now becomes the inner taskmaster for identity? You do, right?
You are constantly setting up these standards, these rules, these objectives, these goals that you must fulfill. In order to be this person that you want to be. And it's, it's this never-ending rat race. And it, and it's, again, whatever stream it is, whether it's your looks, whether it's your sports or academics or just even I just want to be a good person, you become the sole authority and arbiter of have you achieved this? Have you done enough?
And again, I think when you look at the rates of burnout and exhaustion that you're seeing amongst young adults, you see people who have tried that method and have come up, I think, even more despairing, more disillusioned than when they began. Let's get into the sexuality part of this. Yeah. Because you can be whoever you want to be. Yes.
Yeah. And you are your feelings.
So if you feel this, then you have to follow that feeling. And that feeling now becomes your identity.
Now, again, probably 50 to 100 years ago, that would not have been the main mode of how we interact or operate with our feelings, right? You and I probably on any given day feel a certain feeling and recognize that as, okay, like. I'm not going to follow myself on that feeling, right? Like at 10 o'clock at night, I want to have a half gallon of, you know, Haggadah's ice cream. Jonathan, I want to have Jesus every night.
Exactly. But there's something inside me that says, oh, no, I can't follow that feeling because eventually that will become a healthy practice for me.
So we probably have a little bit of a better handle on realizing you can't follow every feeling or impulse. Culturally today, it's the exact opposite. You are your feelings. And especially when it comes to romantic sexual attraction, that becomes the defining characteristic of your identity. And again, 50 to 100 years ago, that would have been very bizarre.
Like nobody would have introduced themselves as, oh, my name's so-and-so. I'm heterosexual, fill in the blank. My pronoun isn't that. Right, my pronoun, because we never would have thought is our sexuality as the most important aspect of our identity. And the pressure that kids and teens are facing today to figure that out is leading to some disastrous consequences.
So what do you encourage a parent to do if he's got a daughter? Who says, I think I'm a boy, or a son who says, I think I'm a girl. I'm 10 years old, 11 years old. I want therapy. I want.
You know, maybe they're not going to go that far, but I'm going to start living and dressing like the other sex. Yeah. Well, the first thing is start the conversation. You got to, you got to draw out before you dive in. And I think a lot of parents go for the wrong goals in the immediate conversation, which typically is to shut down the conversation and issue a rule or a regulation.
We always say, don't freak out. Yes. What does it sound like? What would somebody sound like if they're doing that? We're taking away your phone.
We're taking away your phone. If they say something, this is all coming from those friends you've been hanging out with. You're losing your phone. No video games for the next month. It's all coming from the video games.
Exactly. And what we do then is, and it's a natural impulse for parents, right? Because we want control. It's protection. And we get nervous.
We get freaked out.
So that's great advice, Dave. Don't freak out. You can go in the other room, freak out. Yes. Fight yourself.
Go scream in a pillow. Go role play with your husband. Say, hey, let's practice a conversation. But yeah, don't freak out. Kids are intuitive.
They pick that up.
So I'm telling parents all the time: draw out before you dive in.
So draw out with questions. Who told you that? Why do you think that? And in even some of those narratives, like, you know, a boy comes home and says, Hey, I think I'm a girl, or I want to do this. Just the simple question of, well, Who told you that?
Who told you that if you want to be in theater or if you like this, that you have to suddenly change genders or that you have to completely upend your sexual orientation? Like, who told you that? And why do you believe that you have to follow that person or obey that voice? What makes that voice more important than our voice? And if a child says, if a teen says, because this is who I am, this is, I'm supposed to follow who I am and this is who I am now.
And if you don't agree. Then you don't love me.
Well, and on that, I would say: do a little bit of a thought experiment with me. What happens if you're wrong? What happens if you're wrong? What happens if these feelings that you have, which I don't want to deny, I don't want to deny and shut you down that you do have these feelings, but could your feelings be wrong? Or maybe wrong might seem like a strong word for your generation.
What if they're off a little bit? Do you want to dedicate your entire, you know, next few years of life dedicated to this one thing that you're holding really firmly to? What if you're wrong? Could you be wrong? And just introducing that level of doubt into the conversation can open up the doorway to say, hey, your feelings are going to change.
And that's why even now, when you look at how kids and teens are identifying, the biggest bucket the kids are identifying with is they don't want to put a label on it. They want to be creative and expansive and have room to be able to maneuver amongst the, you know, that the alphabet soup of the spectrum because they don't want to be pinned down. That's why we have to keep adding, you know, more and more letters to the acronym to accommodate an ever-increasing amount of identities.
So, you know, I was talking to a youth group a couple of months ago and a girl who was a junior came up and she was with her mom and she said, a lot of my friends at lunch were asking me, how did I identify sexually? And the girl said that she got really nervous and she didn't know what to say.
So she just didn't say anything. And she said, all of my friends said, oh, well, if you don't know, you're bisexual. You're bisexual. And she said, now everybody at school thinks that I'm bisexual, but I'm not. But I just didn't want to say anything.
And in that moment, that captures where we're at today as a culture, right? We are telling kids and teens today, hey, you're making the choice. You're following your feelings. But who's telling them that? It's actually the culture around them.
So when I talk about modern identity as an illusion, that's the illusion part of it is kids and teens today think that they're being pioneers in charting their own identity, but they're simply obeying the cultural narratives that are around them and just following those.
So now this young girl is being told by all of her friends, you're bisexual, and she's not. That's not how she would identify. What has she done with that? Did your mom tell you?
Well, the mom said it's been horrible for her mental health. Not surprising. She says she feels really awkward now about her friends. People are looking at her differently. And, you know, we tried to have a brief conversation about some different things that she could do to help her daughter that her daughter could also do.
But it just reminded me in terms of the press, like you were talking about earlier, the pressures that kids and teens are facing today, especially as it relates to gender and sex. I mean, it's something that I don't think that we had to face when we were that age. I mean, what would you say parents are doing? That contributes to gender dysphoria or not doing. I mean, anything comes to your mind, like, hey, this would be helpful for a parent to understand.
Be careful about this and be careful about that. Yeah. I think sometimes I would say parents that maybe come from an older generation or a more conservative background, I think sometimes we could probably have too strict of gender stereotypes around here's what women do, here's what women like, here's what women wear, here's what men do, here's what men like. And I think sometimes those can be more culturally informed rather than biblically informed. And we realize that in scripture, we see a vast variety of cultures, and scripture is a cross-cultural book.
It reaches and touches every culture and ethnicity and background.
So while things might be more culturally male or female for us, that might look totally different somewhere else in another part of the world.
So I would say a lot of times parents, I think, need to reevaluate or just even evaluate their own beliefs and standards as it relates to masculinity and femininity. And just simply ask: Are those biblically informed? Are those more culturally informed? I mean, one of those, when you say that, I think. My generation would and I don't think we say it as much now, although some still do.
Would say, boys are into rough sports and trucks, and girls are into frilly little dresses. And there's a girl like Ann who is very athletic, going, That's not me. And this day, she might be thinking, Yeah, then I would have said I'm a tomboy. Right. But if I were in this generation, I'd think, oh, maybe I am a boy.
No, and there was a great article probably eight or ten years ago in The Atlantic, I think it was. And it was a woman of a daughter who had a tomboy. And she basically the article was saying, My daughter's not transgender. She's just a tomboy. She just enjoys certain things that maybe culturally we have assigned to be more masculine or men's interests.
And she said, just leave her alone. Like, she's just living her life. And I thought it was courageous, especially in our culture, for her to be able to speak up and say that. But I do think that's, I think that that's an important thing to note that those types of interests, again, don't tend to be gender specific. We just have assigned that level of like, well, only boys do.
this or girls do this. One of the things that, you know, I'll point to even biblically is when you look at the book of Exodus, right? You see these people who are artisans and craftsmen and they're males, right? And we typically think of people who are more of the creative artistic types as either more feminine or gay even. And when you look at the Bible, some of the most creative musician style people are men, right?
David is a strong warrior, but he's playing music. He's writing poetry. Yeah, the person that God assigned to build and create the tabernacle. He was one of the first people that was filled with the Holy Spirit of God.
So he must have been such a creative. Absolutely. Yeah. And so when we lay down hard and fast gender stereotypes, like I had a family in the counseling room and they were really concerned that their young daughter didn't want to wear a dress and she only wanted to be in pants. And, you know, one of the things that I try to work with parents in the counseling room is I say, evaluate your reaction.
Do you underreact or do you overreact? Rea. And they were more into overreaction. You know, they were going to put their daughter in counseling, start making her wear dresses. And I just said, what would, what would just.
Keeping tabs on this look like? What would it look like to, you know, ask good questions before you, you know, lay down certain standards and whatnot? And, you know, that's a good example of how we all have to kind of do an internal heart check on ourselves to ask ourselves, okay, how am I approaching this? Am I going to actually cause more harm, more confusion by trying to put them into a particular box rather than just celebrating the way that God designed and created them? One of the things I used to say to our boys, and I say it to our grandkids too, is I'll affirm their sexuality as they're little, like even before five.
Like, I'm so glad that God made you a girl. Isn't that so interesting and fun? Yeah. Because he has something for you as a girl that he's put inside of you. And the same with a boy.
I'm so glad that God made you on purpose as a boy. Yes. And I don't, is that okay to say, can we say that? And I think that's so good. The other day we were at dinner and one of my daughters said something about like, she has a lot of, you know, cousins who are, you know, my nephews.
And she said, it's just.
So much funner being a boy. And I said, Well, why do you think that? She goes, Oh, they just have so much fun. You know, and you know, she rattled off a few examples. I said, But it is so good that you're a girl, too.
I go, Girls can have just as much fun as guys can. And, you know, we all got a good laugh at it. But I think whenever you can positively affirm that, I think parents, again, when we're talking about how do we help shape identity and form it, it's those little moments. It's those little moments at the dinner table, in carpool, on your way to events where those conversations bubble up to the surface and you're planting the seed. I remember one of our grandkids, his mom was pregnant and he said, I wish I was a girl so I could have babies.
And I said, oh, well, you'll be a dad someday and you have to have a dad that makes babies. And he said, I want like 50 of them. And I said, oh, that's so interesting. I wonder if you'll have a lot of kids and maybe you'll do something that you're going to impact kids that God put in you. Maybe you'll be a school teacher or a doctor.
Or you'll adopt a whole bunch of kids. And suddenly, instead of feeling like, oh, I can't have a baby. Yeah. I could have multiple children in God's design. And so I think as parents, we're listening with those ears of speaking identity of Christ into our kids.
Yes. We have to be. We have to be speaking those words of life to our kids as early as we can and as often as we can. And one of the struggles I think that parents have with that is that the way that they envision those conversations is like, you know, they're sitting down at a table with a Bible and a notebook and their kids are across from them. And if that's how you do it, great.
Like, you know, hats off to it. But I think it's a lot of times in these smaller one-off conversations that are very unexpected where you really have to rely on the power of the Spirit in that moment to fill you with wisdom, to fill you with knowledge, to fill you with discernment. And when a question comes up that you don't know how to answer, to be humble enough to say, I don't know. Let me think about that. Let me get back to you on that.
Let me talk to your mom, because she probably has the answer. Listen to the Family Life Today. Listen to Dave and Ann Wilson because this very session. That was one of my questions is Do you think it's harder today for our kids and for parents? One of the stats in your book is trans has gone up doubled in five years.
Oh, it's doubled. I mean, the rates at which you see kids and teens identifying as trans are skyrocketing. And there's one big date that a lot of sociologists are tracking it back to, and it's 2008, which is when the iPhone was invented.
So you kind of see all the charts tracking, you know, different things we're seeing with sexual orientation confusion, gender dysphoria, mental health. And it's kind of like somewhat flatlined. And then you get to 2008 and it's sharp. Really? Yeah.
And again, it's not, not all of those problems are directly tied to kids having phones or whatnot. But what it has done. is it has made available to kids and teens an amount of voices and influences that before that I don't think that they had access to.
So now, you know, at the palm of their hand, they can be listening to a social media influencer in LA. Or in London, or in Chicago, or New York. And um, the access that kids and teens have now to so many different influential streams and voices, uh, I definitely think is a game changer. That again, when we were growing up, we just didn't have that. Oh, yeah, I mean, I was thinking, uh, couple weeks ago was Easter.
You're listening to this months later. Yeah. But when we recorded this, and I'm preaching on Easter, and in one part of my sermon, I was saying some apologetics about defending that this was a true historical act. And I said, here's the thing, parents. If your son or daughter sitting beside you has a phone, they're hearing every...
They can look up everything I'm saying right now and hear the opposite view by very intelligent people. Are going to tell them your preachers. Right. That never happened 50 years ago. Oh, no.
You didn't even debate me unless you really wanted to go do your homework. Right. Now it's fff. Yes. And by the way, I said, check out those sources.
They're not usually very good to others.
Some of them are really good. But that's the world our kids are living in. It's bombarding different thoughts about my sexuality, who I am as a boy or girl, what I should do, my athletics, my academics. Right. It's crazy.
Well, it makes us want to hide. We want to hide from the world. We want to take our children and live in a commune. And you're not saying to do that. No.
What? Absolutely. So some just practical things that we can. Because take away their phones, take away the TVs. You're doing it, right?
Yeah, we are doing one of the first things going back to what we said earlier, is just identify your own instinct towards these kinds of problems. Are you an over-reactor or an under-reactor?
So, a lot of times, yes, exactly. And a lot of times, I see that dynamic happen in marriage all the time. A mom and a dad will bring in their teen or bring me, you know, a counseling issue, and you can see the mom and the dad aren't on the same page, which I think that's even step one is realizing, yeah, okay, this is actually a unity issue for us as husband and wife. We need to get on the same page, we need to listen to one another, we need to be having conversations. Because if we go into this conversation with our kid and teen on two different pages, they're going to drive a Mac truck through that, right?
Yeah, they're going to play, they're smart, they're smart, you know, they're smart little kids. Uh, so a lot of the work first needs to be done with you, and honestly, we do a ton of work with kids and adolescents, and most of my counselors would tell you most of the work needs. Needs to be done with the parents, right? We need to do some of the work first as parents, asking the Lord to help us. And Dave and I, it's kind of good that we're.
We, Dave, is like, everything's great. Everything's fine. They're doing great. They're fine. I tend to overreact, but when we come together, it's a good balance.
It is a good balance. But if we don't come together with our kids in the moment, yeah. You're right. They'll conquer and divide. They will.
Divide and conquer. Jonathan, I found out she's usually right. Oh, yes. I'm not about that. It's like, oh, there was more going on there than I wanted to see or admit.
But it was good for me to rest and you're like, God's got them. God's got them. Yes. And so that would be one thing is just kind of identify where you're at. The second thing is be involved with your kids.
And this sounds so simple, right?
Sounds so straightforward, but. I think we have given up a lot of relational capital with our kids to other people, to coaches, to Sunday school teachers, to school teachers, to friends, to friends' parents. And again, those are good people, but in Deuteronomy 6, God called us to teach and to talk. To our children about who the Lord is. And so we luck along the way, yeah.
At every single point in their life. And Jonathan, what I'm seeing too, and I can be guilty of this, is we're not as involved or we're not watching what our kids are doing because we're on our own devices. Oh, we are. You know, it's like, I hope that show's okay. They're watching.
I'm not even watching it. That happened to us the other day. My wife and I walked in. There's a TV show, and I like did a double take. I go, What are you guys watching?
And, you know, and we're like, ah, you know. We need to change the channel. And they're like, well, we've been watching this for the past couple of weeks, you know? And I'm like, oh my goodness, you guys.
So you're right. You're right. I walked in and our preschooler, grandchild, and the mom and dad, they weren't in the room. And it's, there's a gay parade for this three-year-old show. What?
I know.
It's everywhere. It's everywhere. So, and again, it's not that we are trying to find those different things so that we can just shut off access, but so that we can engage in conversation.
Now, 90% of the time, I don't do that. And I can just say, okay, turn that off. But if I was in a better spot and I had more time, what I should say in some of those moments is, okay, why do you think we're telling you that this isn't good for you? Why do you think we're telling you that this is probably not the best thing for you to be watching or filling your mind with to try to get them to think critically? And so that would, that would also be another method of, I think, trying to engage our children is asking questions.
I will say this: I think a lot of parents don't ask questions of their kids. Kids because they actually have to engage in conversation. Really? And we don't, I think that we get. I think sometimes we get intimidated by conversation, especially with teenagers.
I talk to parents all the time and they say, My teen doesn't want to talk. They're so intimidating to talk to. I just get one-word answers. It's not even worth it. I've just given up.
I say, oh, don't, like, don't give up. Like, that's just a defense mechanism. You know, for most teens, they just want to be left alone, but you can't leave them alone. You're their parents.
So I think sometimes we have to admit to our own fears or hesitations or even sense of awkwardness that we might have with conversations. That's where, you know, I talk a lot about redeeming carpool. I mean, I'm in the car so much with my kids at practices and their school is about 20 minutes away. And it has been the best time for us.
So we have a no-phone rule in our car. Nice. And so we just talk, we'll listen to things on the radio. We'll listen to a podcast or we'll listen to scripture. And it's 20 minutes where they can't go anywhere.
They can't leave. But it also. Where it it feels less fraught as a like, hey, I'm sitting across from you at a table and I'm like, you know, giving you a lecture. Yeah, shoulder to shoulder. Yeah, it's just shoulder to shoulder.
It's not as uh yeah. And it's I think it just makes the conversation feel a lot more normal. And some of our best conversations have been in the car. Just on carpools. Car time.
Card time is great. Yeah. Well, it's interesting when you mentioned Deuteronomy 6. Yeah. We wrote a parenting book and that that passage was sort of the center of it.
The thing that's really interesting, even as we what came to my mind when we're talking about identity, is you know. He says in Deuteronomy 6.4, Parents basically love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and teach these things to your children.
So there's this sense that it comes from you. It's an overflow. If you don't do it, how are you going to teach it?
So I was thinking, identity. If we're gonna try and instill God's Word and God's view of our son and daughter from his, you got to understand how God views you. Yeah, if they're watching us, because they're watching, if we're not finding our identity in him rather than a salary or what my boss thinks, or how well I did last week on the pickup basketball, softball game, whatever, all that stuff. It's like they're watching. It's like you say whatever you want.
If you're not living it, they're like, Yeah, you're trying to find your identity the same way I am. Yeah, it's just different degrees, you know, right? It is. No, I mean, kids are always watching us, watching us like the hog. I'll give you, I'll give you a simple example.
You know, my wife and I are really involved in our church and, you know, on holidays and different special Sundays. I mean, we're all running here and there, you know, doing different things. And, you know, my kid, one of my daughters said, you guys are always so busy on Sunday. She goes, We always have to sit by ourselves on, you know, Easter or Palm Sunday because you and mom are out in the foyer serving. And again, it was a catch for me because I realized I think I'm doing a good thing serving, but I could also be communicating a narrative to them of, listen, it's just about your work.
It's about what you do for other people. And I could miss it. Oh, the good works chapter. I think I was trying to write it for myself because my whole identity growing up was just built around just be a good person. That's how you earn favor with God.
It's just be a good person, follow all the rules.
So my identity was purely built on being a rule follower. It's kind of like the older brother in Luke 15. And I think that that, again, kind of going off of the identity tangent there. I think a lot of kids in Christian homes, that's a strong source of identity information that looks good on the outside, but can be pretty sinister internally. Yeah, we have a friend, Jamie Winship.
I wrote a book called Living Fearlessly. And of all the people I've listened to teach on identity, he came to our church years ago and did some seminars and whatever. I've never heard anybody talk, I guess, but here's one of his sayings that I thought, man, I want this for me, but I really want this for my sons. He said, when you understand who you are in Christ, and that whole theology of in Christ, I literally taught on it Sunday that it's not Christ is outside me anymore, he's actually in me through his Holy Spirit. And I now have my identity as formed.
I'm in Christ. And he said, Jamie said, so when you understand that, like you're living that. He says, you walk into any room you walk into, you control it.
Now, when I first heard that, I'm like, that sounds so arrogant. And he didn't mean you're so prideful, you control it. He's like, no, most rooms we walk into, we're trying to win somebody's approval.
Somebody in that room's important. It could be your boss. It could be a friend. But somebody there is, you want to win their approval.
So you do things and say things just to get their approval. He goes, when you understand who you are. You control that room because, like, I am approved by the king of the kings. I don't need this guy's approval. I don't need to say anything or exaggerate how good I am to get, I've got it.
So, I walk in like confidential. I mean, when I've said this, like, my chest is out. I'm like, and again, I'm not prideful. I am confident in Christ. I don't need anybody's approval.
I've already got it.
So, what am I going to do? I'm going to serve. Yes. I'm going to serve and build up others. I thought, man, if my sons walk out of our house.
And that's how they walk in every room as a parent.
Well Yeah. And you hit the nail on the head in terms of Following a modern identity formation process, what it ultimately does is it creates somebody who's so egotistical and self-involved because their identity has all been manufactured on their own and it's based in their performance.
So they are the best version of whatever. A gospel identity is actually the key to true humility because you realize at the end of the day, you didn't do anything to deserve this. And that humility leads you to outward service towards others. It leads you to a humble recognition of loving God and loving other people because you realize at the end of the day that God pursued us while we were still sinners. And that is both humbling, but it's also freeing because you realize I did nothing to deserve or earn this, and there's nothing I'm going to do to lose this or to fall away from this.
It's received and not achieved. It's received and not achieved. That's good. I mean, part of me wants to say to the parents listening, although maybe there's some sons and daughters listening. But I sort of want to say, well, you say it better.
You wrote the book on it, but I want to say. you go after your identity in Christ. And guess what? They'll catch it. They will.
I mean, you got to teach it. It's called a title. Yes, absolutely. I remember saying to four of our grandkids were in the car. Their parents weren't in the car with us.
And I remember they were talking about their dad. Our son. And I said, Well, you know, he is a genius. You know, and they were laughing, like, no, he's not naughty. He's our dad.
And I'm like, no, because in a way, When God created him, there's no one like him in the entire planet, nor has there ever been or ever will be. And so, in a way, every single one of us, when we live out who God created us to be, it's kind of we're a genius in our own self. It's not that we're better, it's like we're designed by a creator that has never created anyone else like us in the world. Like, that's pretty incredible. Oh, it is incredible.
And it goes, again, it's so counterintuitive to the message today, which is all about be the most unique person you can be. I already am. You already are. Yeah, you are fearfully and wonderfully made by the creator of the universe. And again, it's those kind of seeds that we're dropping in conversation to our kids as early as we can and as often as we can.
Hey, you know, last question. I'm looking at your book here. Yeah. We haven't even talked about in grace. We have.
Yes. I mean, it's the gospel, right? But what are these images? You've got a dove? You've got a crown?
That is a great. You're probably one of the first people that's asked me that, Dave. The book designer, I think, when. When he was creating the book, he said that he was trying to give it like a creative kids kind of artistic type feel.
So all of those images are kind of trying to emulate that. Jonathan, I love. How informative? You always are, but also how practical, like everything that you write, I feel like is a felt need in our world today.
So keep going. Thank you guys so much. And how do people, how do they find you? They can go to the counseling center website that I lead. It's fieldstonecounseling.org.
And if you're looking for counseling for yourself, your marriage, or your children, we would love to be able to be of service to you. And by the way, you know this. Counseling through Zoom is as good. I'm sure it's better if you're in person, but I've done it and it's like I'm there. It definitely works.
So there's a lot of bad things that technology brings, but there are some good things that it brings too.
So absolutely. Yep. And we've got his book Grounded in Grace in our show notes, familylifetoday.com. Go there. You can buy the book there.
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