Divine Identity Means Choosing Him

What does it really mean to have a divine identity—and is it something we’re simply born with, or something we choose? In this episode, we explore what it means to be a child of God, why agency matters, and how choosing Christ shapes who we become. Through scripture, conference teachings, and honest conversation, we talk about belonging, becoming one with God, and why our divine identity is the foundation of the plan of happiness—even on the messy, imperfect days.

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This week, choose to live like you are God’s child, trusting that He can work with you exactly as you are.

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Show Notes

Drip-Drip Drop, Words and  Music by  Matt Hoiland
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Transcript

Divine Identity Means Choosing Him

[00:00:00] 

Cydni: I wanted to come up with something funny and clever for our intro, but the problem is this. If I could just be honest, I just felt the spirit so strong while I was studying. I said my prayers and I was studying this topic and I was like, listen, spirit, I'm trying to be funny and witty and you're overpowering me right now. And I was hoping for a little balance, And I'm feeling good and joy and just like, this, seriousness in my soul and it's just really throwing me off.

It's throwing me off too. And so I just had to make some bad decisions since then to like counteract. Of course you did. So if our neighbors ask if anyone knows about broken mailboxes that were beaten with a bat, just say you don't know. Anyway, I feel better now. Welcome to the Cydni and Sher Podcast. 

Sher: All right, Cydni, today we are going to talk about. A basic but super important topic, which is our [00:01:00] divine identity.

In this topic, I feel like that I personally have just heard so much about lately. Almost every talk I've read, when I open my scripture app, it always goes to divine identity. Every single time it's saying to me that I am a daughter of God. So apparently I must need to hear that over and over again because this has kind of been extra in my face. 

Cydni: What if it's really just about the divine part? We know we're daughters of God. I think that's in us. But what if the divine part's missing and God's like, Hey guys, what if you studied divine a little bit more? So maybe you could act. Divine. That's a really good point. 'cause notice I did not repeat it when I said that. Right. I did notice. And I notice a lot about myself also that maybe some would say not divine, but so fine. 

Sher: I don't think you smashing mailboxes with baseball bats was very divine.

Cydni: No, but it was a good time. We did that in high school. You did not. Well, I [00:02:00] didn't, but I went with people who did. You're like driving the getaway vehicle? Is that happened? I don't even think I participated in that way. I think I was just in the backseat like, don't you do that? I'm a divine daughter of God and so are you. Put that bat away. I also played softball. It was my bat. 

Sher: Oh my goodness. Cydni. I know. That's horrible. I know. Well. I thought maybe we should start with something that we talked about last week in Moses chapter one, where God uses the phrase, my son in chapter one four different times, and we talked about can you imagine what that would be like hearing God say to you, my daughter or my son, That would just be so overwhelming to me. And I thought about how unworthy I am to hear that.

Cydni: that's beautiful. But I'm laughing to myself. So definitely got rid of the Spirit because I was thinking, . It would be more relatable to me for God to say, who ate all that fruit? And who told you to put that fig leaf on? 

this is not to a good start. You're welcome. Yeah, I'm sorry.. [00:03:00] 

Sher: So I decided though I was pondering this, that God said this four times to Moses, and I wondered if he said it again later on. Anywhere in Moses, and I found something that I thought was kind of interesting, and that is the Lord calls Enoch my son twice in later chapters, and I want to read one of the scriptures where God says to Enoch, behold thou art one in me, a son of God, and thus may all become my sons. Amen.

So not very long, but I wanna just look at the first line that says, behold thou art one in me a son of God. What I'm learning from this is that Enoch chose to be one with God. So this is the opportunity that Enoch had, and we all have to choose to be one with our Savior. And our Heavenly Father Enoch chose to accept that. And we all have that opportunity to accept if we're sons or daughters of God. But here's my question aren't we talking about our [00:04:00] divine identity and aren't we already the sons and daughters of God? So why on earth are we choosing this? But to further confuse us in that same verse, it says, and thus may all become my sons. So I was thinking about this and I decided to look at the footnote and the footnote takes us to John chapter one, verse 12. This is what it says, but as many as received him and him is Christ. So let me say it again, but I'm gonna replace it with Christ.

But as many as received Christ to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. And then I'm just gonna add one more thing to this.

Elder Bednar recently said. We chose in the Preexistence to do this plan. The plan of salvation, the plan of happiness. We voted for that and we chose to follow our Savior and our Heavenly Father, and that was our first estate. And we are here in our second estate and. We're expected to do the same. And this is what Elder [00:05:00] Bednar said about this.

We don't receive moral agency to just do whatever we want. We receive agency as a gift in order to follow the Father's plan and accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and Redeemer. So I wanna remind me, and you and everybody that we are the literal children of God. He wants his home so badly that he sent His son Jesus Christ to pay for all of our sins.

Our Savior Was already perfect and he didn't have to go through all of this. But he did. He chose to follow the Father's plan. So if we want to live with our Heavenly Father, again, we need to continue to choose to follow this plan and become one with Heavenly Father and Jesus.

And if we do this, we are choosing to acknowledge that we are his son or we are his daughter, and we want to continue to follow the plan. So again, if we do this as his children, we will have the blessings of eternity and all that our Father has. So [00:06:00] this is the thing Cydni about our Father in Heaven, is he isn't forcing us to do anything.

He's not making us be His son or be His daughter if we don't want it. He wants us to choose to be one with Him. That's what He wants. He wants to give us the opportunity to work for it, to strive for it, to say, yes, I do want to be your daughter or your son. So why did I go on this really long tangent?

Cydni: I think partly for me that was so beautiful because I've always thought of it as the decisions we make but you made it more tangible that it's actually choosing to accept Christ, which is why you would choose to live a certain way, is because you 

Sher: did accept Christ. So I liked it. Thank you. And I can't take credit for it. It was from Elder Bednar. I think it was something that I needed to hear that I am choosing right now. If I want to be a daughter of God, I'm choosing that. I wanna be his daughter and I wanna return home to live with him again. That's what we're all choosing. But it's [00:07:00] important to know who we belong to and who we are, and accepting our father's plan as his sons and daughters. That is everything. So knowing our divine identity and how we fit into the plan and making the proper choices is what will get us back to our heavenly home.

I was talking to my brother this morning he's a lot smarter than I am. You do not have to say that. Well, it's true. Everybody that's on record now, edit that out. Everybody who knows, the two of us definitely knows he's smarter, especially in gospel subjects or any subject actually.

But he is a retired seminary teacher, and he said, you know, everything, if you strip it down to the basics of the gospel. Everything traces back to that meeting in our first estate. Our Father introduced this plan of happiness to us as His sons and daughters, and that is where we chose to accept it or not. And look at how many of our brothers and sisters we lost just from him introducing it and hopefully I will stay true to the plan [00:08:00] because we're still choosing it. Are we gonna accept the plan, accept agency, accept our divinity that we are his children, do we want that or do we know better and we have a better way? Which certainly I do not.

 So As I was thinking about this, we've talked a lot about this last year about how we are the literal children of God and isn't it interesting how Satan is attacking that in our divine identity right now? How he's just going after it when really everything boils down to something so simple. We're choosing to continue to be a daughter of God right now, or a son of God, and that's it. We are choosing if we wanna continue to belong to God or not. 

Cydni: I'm so glad you simplified it so much because it really goes really well with some thoughts I had from the Unshaken podcast I was listening to the other day. And I'm trying to tie together two different thoughts I've had with something new you just added

because a lot of the times I think when you think about [00:09:00] choosing to be God, sometimes it's this deep unworthiness feeling that you think so and so could be a child of God, but you yourself, maybe you're too broken, you've messed up too much, you're too far gone, and maybe you just feel like you're just falling short all of the time.

And I think the host of Unshaken said this the most beautiful way I have ever heard it. And I'm gonna do my best to say what he said and take some of his words, but he talked about how amazing it is, and I'm going to take this back a little bit to the creation. Just a tad because what this gentleman says about the creation is we need to understand that there was already existing matter. Not organized and God took that and created a beautiful world and how spectacular and magnificent that actually is. He said when he was talking to his construction friends, that starting a new project is actually easier than going into an existing project and working with what's there.

And so to understand the [00:10:00] creativity that is within God. To create something so beautiful out of, kind of messed up, unorganized material, helps to understand just how powerful he is. And he says, we do have a God who specializes in recreating things in refashioning, remaking and redeeming.

 And this for myself. I know that in my house I have over a hundred notebooks and journals that are all over the place, unorganized. And it's honestly, the truth is it's because I tend to be a little bit of a perfectionist with how I want things done, especially when it comes to creativity.

So if I'm in a zone and I wanna write poetry or write in my journal and I'm off to a good start and then I mess up or skip. I'm done with that journal. It will no longer be used and it is tucked away and I will start fresh. And I see it with my children too when they're drawing or painting. If they mess up, they are very quick to grab a new piece of paper.

And I know it's not just in our [00:11:00] household. People would rather just like start over and have a fresh start and we need to understand. That God doesn't do that. And I think for myself, if I could go back as a new mom now with what I've learned, I would really love that.

I feel like I've messed up sometimes and I haven't done things the way I would really like to do, but if I could have a fresh start with a brand new rock and I could be like, okay, with everything I know now I can give you so much more. Or just like God, clean slate. Me? But that's not how it happens. And so here's Brother Halvorson's words with all of this. If he can create out of nothing, a saint, someone like him, for God to say, no, I didn't even do that with the universe. I'm certainly not going to do that with you.

I can take whatever matter you consist of. I can take whatever you have to offer me. And then Brother Halverson remembers the words of Isaiah and he talks about beauty from ashes. And he continues to say that maybe we feel like that, that our life consists of a burned [00:12:00] out shell of hopes that I never lived up to or purposes that God intended for me that I fell short of, that it's too late for me. Yet what the creator of the universe says is, oh, but that's how I do things. I take existing matter and I turn it into something beautiful. Maybe we feel like all we have to offer is ash, and he could hear God saying, oh, but that's my favorite material to work with. You should see what I can do with Ash. I can bring beauty out of that if you will just offer it to me. The words for myself that stood out in that is, you should see what I can do with that.

And I looked back on my life and I thought I could hear God say to me. Okay, you have some pain to offer up. You should see what I can do with that. You have some fear, some hurt, some disappointment, some brokenness. You should see. What I can do with that and this idea from listening to his podcast and listening to what you just said and to reading the creation story that I have been reading the last few weeks, [00:13:00] is to understand God, not just as a Heavenly Father, but as the creator to take existing materials and turn it into something absolutely magnificent, but not just that, but to love to do it, and to want to do it, and to be excited to do it. I love the words. You should see what I can do with that.

Sher: I love that too. We've learned that creating makes Him happy. God really is saying come to me. Let me help you. Let me show you what I can do with that, i'm sure that with your own children, when they come to you with their problems and say, mom, can you please help me with this when they're upset or distraught, I'm sure you're just like, yes, I can help you with that. I. No, no 

Cydni: other moms. Maybe I'm like, I'm trying to watch Bolden The Beautiful right now. Did you just see it was four 30? It's prime time. I do love the excitement that you're saying because even this Christmas rock asked for oil paint he was so excited when he got it and whipped it out and started [00:14:00] painting and I feel like I can see that excitement with God.

Like, give me all those colors. I want everything I want to be able to create with that. And we think of the scriptures and the men and women who we get to see in the stories who are created from something like Saul. He has a lot of colors. But who he becomes as Paul, that is beautiful and that is within all of us.

I think with the divine identity popping up over and over I feel like maybe is also for me. Do we all feel that way? Probably. I have been on a personal quest to understand my own identity as a woman and. a lot of it comes just from the process of healing from the childhood situations that I had, and understanding that sometimes when traumatic things happen at a young age, there's a disconnection of connecting to yourself.

And so I have been on this quest of my own, which studying the podcast has helped me so much to understand [00:15:00] my identity and role as a divine child of God. But one thing that I kept running into as we studied last year is so often it says, do you want more power? You want the spirit with you. You wanna understand who you are.

Read the scriptures. And I thought to myself, why read the scriptures to understand who you are? And something came to me and it was this thought that I feel like I may have possibly shared before, but I heard in my mind to understand who you are, you must first understand the magnitude of who he is. That means I need to understand God's character to understand my own potential character. And when you think about God, you think of eternal and holy and just, and good and merciful and loving and great and unchanging. And the list can go on and on if you read the scriptures and find it. And I thought to myself that's a great way to start to understand who I am.

And as I have read the scriptures to understand. Who I am and understand the gospel more [00:16:00] fully. I also have found myself in other stories. Hold on. So why do I have to turn to the scriptures to understand who I am? It's because. I am in there.

I am the blind man who needs new sight. I am the woman with an issue who is desperate to reach out and just touch Christ. I am the man who can say, yay Lord, I believe. Help down my unbelief. I am the fearful young man with Elijah, who feels alone in battle.

But if I could just see, I would know that there's more that be with me than with them. And I am definitely Jonah who says, I hear what you're saying, but I'm gonna go my own way. I am the woman who's in the figs eating the food I wasn't supposed to. . Or especially, I felt like I'm definitely, David, can I please just throw a rock at that 

Sher: or a bat as the case may 

Cydni: be? . And so like your wise brother said, it is true that with all the studying in prayer and journaling I have done to understand who I am, it's leading back to the [00:17:00] basics of the beginning that I am a child of God.

Sher: It's true Cydni. We can go on our quest forever, but it really does just boil back to the beginning. I found a talk by Elder Brian K. Taylor in conference of 2018. He asked the question, am I a child of God? And I find comfort in our church leaders asking the same questions because that makes me feel a little bit better about myself, that we're all asking the same questions, we're all in this together, just trying to figure it out. But he quoted a few people in his talk and I just wanna mention those.

 First of all is President Boyd k Packer and President Packer said, you are a child of God. He is the Father of your spirit spiritually. You are of noble birth, the offspring of the King of heaven. Fix that truth in your mind and hold to it however many generations in your mortal ancestry, no matter what race or people you represent, the pedigree of your spirit can be written on a single line.

You [00:18:00] are a child of God. So are we making the choice to follow our father so that we can be one with Him again? Because we have that DNA in us. We have the capability to do it because. You and I are children of God. The next quote he uses is from Brigham Young.

Brigham Young said, when you see our Father, you'll see a being with whom you have long been acquainted. And he will receive you into his arms and you'll be ready to fall into his embrace and kiss him.. When I read this, I think about my own father. And I can't wait to see him again. I can't wait to hug him because I miss him so much.

So if you think about someone that you miss that has gone on to the next life, and now imagine how much your Heavenly Father and Savior miss you. So they miss more than you. They as in miss us more than we ever could. And they can love more than us. They have all of these [00:19:00] emotions perfectly. Cydni, I honestly believe this is why we can't remember. This meeting and the whole preexistence is because I feel like it would just hurt too much.

We would be so homesick, we would miss home way too much, and it would make life way too difficult, and I think it would make it so we couldn't do it because that longing to be with our Father in Heaven and our Savior again, would just be too much to bear being away from them. But because both love us perfectly and more than any of us can comprehend. They chose this plan of happiness for us so that we could all be together again. And can you even imagine the reunion each one of us will have if we choose to acknowledge who we are, who we belong to? Choose to follow the plan to get back home. When we get our memory back, of the pre-existence, it's going to be a really fabulous day and I really hope, I'm not embarrassed for myself when we get all that memory back [00:20:00] because I'm probably gonna be like, good grief. But it's going to be a wonderful reunion if we choose to acknowledge who we belong to and who we really are.

Cydni: I love thinking of it in that way because it helps to bring to life what that yearning for home is actually like. And then it helps me to cope with the fact that I'm here that it actually might get better. I hope so. You know, though, I just have to say one more thing I keep taking this back to the creation instead of the actual outline.

I'm sorry, but it's just, I have thought about this a lot since we started studying it. Why would it even matter to know the details of every single day of the creation? Because technically, if we read. God created the earth with his glory and magnitude. That would be amazing, right? That would be enough.

Yeah. So I have been pondering on the question, and I've asked my family, why does it matter so much to know that day one, day two, day three, creation [00:21:00] story? And as I've pondered on this, I have had a few thoughts come immediately. I thought that it does represent that God took his time. To create this for us.

That this gift took a lot of work and effort and thought to give to us, which I think is a beautiful idea, but another thought that has come to me is that truly it represents that. Good things take time and that it is a line upon line as we learn in the scriptures over and over and as we see in ourselves as children of God, that our experience on this earth as one of his children is to learn line upon line.

And in that is so much room for mistakes and error, and I gotta start that part over again. Which is a very common story in my life, I feel like, and so we hope that as you study and you go throughout this year, that you do give yourself grace to know, that the earth wasn't created in one day. And that [00:22:00] all these things take time.

Even the studying of our own identity, which is why we see it over and over because it is a truth that we do learn line upon line. For our challenge this week, we challenge you to learn line upon line no matter where that line is for you. And remember these words from President Packer, you are of noble birth, the offspring of the King of Heaven, and we challenge you to fix that truth in your mind and hold to it.

Sher: And this brings us to our final thoughts, knowing who we belong to. Who we really are and choosing over and over again to accept our Father's plan is the entire point. Our divine identity isn't just a nice idea. It's the foundation of the plan of happiness. We are the literal sons and daughters of God. He wants his home so badly that he sent His perfect son. To make a way for us, even though he didn't have to.

And now it's our [00:23:00] turn to choose to follow the plan, to become one with the Father and the Savior, and to live like we actually believe who we are. When we remember our divine identity, our choices make more sense. Our purpose becomes clear and the path home feels possible. And what a reunion that's going to be if we choose to remember. Choose to follow and choose Him because you should see what God can do with that. This is our prayer 

Cydni: from Cydni and Sher, 

Sher: Rudy is a lot. I'm glad I took him for a walk. 

Cydni: I'm a lot too Rudy there'll be zero interruptions on my end from Yeah. Right. For the next three minutes. Okay. That's it. There go. 

Sher: I [00:24:00] apologize. Rudy is struggling. 

Cydni: I am so happy you read the footnote. That's amazing. That 

Sher: I 

Cydni: read. Thank you. It's amazing that you read.

I know. Yay for me. Wow. No, it's so good. but help Go away. Emotions. Okay. Stifle it. Okay. And it was done even as I speak. Nope, that's not it. I'm gonna say that a challenge one more time as usual. 70 times. Okay. I even wrote it down. Okay. 

Sher: Have a good week. Bye. 

Annotated Works Cited 

Bednar, Elder David A. “We chose in the Pre-existence”. Come Follow Me Study Plan.

Elder Bednar’s remarks about the pre‑existence, agency, and the Plan of 

Happiness form the theological backbone of the podcast segment on “choosing” 

our divine identity.

Brigham Young. “When you see our Father, you’ll see a being with whom you have long 

been acquainted…” (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 5, p. 123).

Used to illustrate the personal, relational view of Heavenly Father that the 

speakers invoke when describing the desire to return home.

Enoch 1 (Pearl of Great Price).

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/scriptures/pgp/enoch/1?lang=eng

Cited because the podcast mentions God calling Enoch “my son,” supporting the 

idea that divine sonship is a repeated and is a choice. 

Halvorson, Brother. Quote on “beauty from ashes”. 

Provides a modern, personal illustration of how God can transform brokenness 

into beauty, reinforcing the “ash‑to‑beauty” theme.

Isaiah https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/scriptures/ot/isaiah?lang=eng

Referenced when the speakers discuss prophetic imagery of “beauty from 

ashes.” 

John 1:12 (New Testament). 

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/scriptures/nt/john/1.12?lang=eng

Cited via a footnote to show that receiving Christ grants the power to become 

children of God, linking the gospel of Christ to divine identity.

Moses 1 (Pearl of Great Price). 

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/scriptures/pgp/moses/1?lang=eng

The speakers note that God calls “my son” four times in this chapter, establishing 

a scriptural pattern that frames the discussion of divine sonship.

Packer, Boyd K. “You are a child of God… the offspring of the King of Heaven.” (Talk, 

Teachings of Presidents of the Church, 1995).

This classic affirmation of divine lineage is quoted to ground the conversation in 

authoritative church teaching.

Taylor, Brian K. 2018 General Conference address.  “Are We Children of God?” 

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2018/04/

Elder Taylor’s question about being a child of God prompts the hosts to explore 

the concept of divine identity more deeply.

Unshaken Podcast (episode discussing creation and “beauty from ashes”; exact 

episode number/date not supplied).

Referenced when the hosts compare the creative process of God to human 

artistic effort, providing a contemporary, secular perspective that complements 

the doctrinal discussion.