Satan has been using an ancient trap to injure our children for thousands of years. Its design has never changed, it’s nearly always effective and it continues to claim thousands of victims every day. When parents fail to separate the identity of their children from their behavior, they have just fallen into that trap.
The trap might look something like this. Mom catches her daughter in a lie. Her immediate response is to say, “You little liar, no one wants to be friends with a liar.” Instead of correcting the behavior, the mother cursed her daughter’s identity and implanted an expectation of a life without friends.
A better response would have been, “Honey, I love you, Gods loves you, and you’re a good girl. But when you tell mommy a lie, you are not acting like the little girl God created you to be. So, go to your room and I’ll be there in a minute to help you remember who you are.”
In that simple example, Mom is not going to leave the behavior unchallenged, but she is also not allowing her daughter to identify with the sin. There are consequences for wrong behavior but the consequence should never be the destruction of identity.
Aren’t you thankful that God is able to separate our behavior from our identity? He loved us so much that while we were yet sinners, He sent Christ to die for us (Romans 5:8).
