How do we get to that divinely created wondrous being that lies underneath the false self? A big part I have come to understand is knowing that I am already my true self. It is whole and fully who I am meant to be. It is who God made me to be when He created me. What I struggle with is .... who is that?
I began exploring this a bit last summer when I was at a retreat and a spiritual director suggested that I stop staring at what was not - namely no intimacy with the Lord - and started staring at other parts of me - the things that I am. Who am I as a woman, wife, mother, teacher etc... How does my body honor the Lord? The last one is where I started ... but initially I didn't know how to look beyond the false self and my list regarding my body was filled with horrors and hatred. I prayed and asked God for another idea... and one popped into my head. 'How do I experience the world?... Thru the 5 senses! So I began to write down what I love to smell and taste and touch and hear and see. It was like a kindergarten list exploring the 5 senses. But it changed something in me ... I was finally able to see past all my shit and see some of the things God placed in me that I desired and loved. I wrote down that I love to smell lilacs and see the wind blowing in the trees and that I love the taste of cheesecake and the sound of spring peepers and I love to feel lambs ear - a fuzzy plant ... and my heart truly rejoiced and worshiped and I was able to thank God for making me to like these things. No one else has a constellation of 'likes' just like me, and this is just a small part of what makes me unique.
I think my above story illustrates a verse that probably would never be utilized in this situation like I'm about to use it right now ... 'to think on whatever is pure and holy and lovely' ... Thats all that I was doing -- thinking about the ways that God made me lovely - but it didn't make me look at myself it made me look at God and give Him glory.
I once read an Elizabeth Elliot book, Let Me Be a Woman, I don't remember much about it these many years later but one thing that has stuck with me was this: a jellyfish glorifies God by just being a jellyfish. A jellyfish doesn't have to 'work' at giving God glory, it just does by being what it was designed to be. That got me thinking even then ... how does a human glorify God? Can it be so simple ... that me just being myself is what brings God glory? The problem at the time and even still 20 years later is that perhaps I have no idea who I really am.
I have read through the many lists of 'who I am in Christ', I have prayed through them and asked God to teach me about the ones I really don't believe. I have confessed my unbelief and prayed 'in' the truth. For a season I pondered all of that. But this is deeper. I don't want to say that this - who I am in Christ list - is generic because that is simply the wrong word, but it certainly isn't specific to me either. One thing that Merton stresses about the true self is that as I understand and live in my union with Christ more fully I do not become less me ... I become MORE of myself. I don't dissolve... as Christ is more fully revealed in my life... no its more like I blossom into myself. And the Lord doesn't want us to dissolve! All of the human story is about God wanting a relationship with His creation. If He had wanted robots He would have created us that way. No He wants us to be what he created us to be - our unique selves. The problem is that we are so stuck living in our false self ... and we keep giving Him the shadow and not the real us.
So who am I? If I am fearfully and wonderfully made ... why does my soul still NOT know it very well? How do I learn about this unique created being? Do I need to learn to live in union with the Lord first or is it a both/and? I know I can't sit and ponder just my 5 senses but I am still unsure how to ponder my uniqueness as a woman, daughter, sister, wife, and mother... It seems like it should be simple, but man it feels scary and hard.
Saturday, February 11, 2017
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
more false self/true self
The true self is the 'me' I was always created to be. I was made in the image of God, the breath of God breathed into me. This is just not the 'me' that people saw when I was first born, or even in much of the years after, heck even much of today. Whatever my true self is ... it is the place where the Holy Spirit unites with in divine union. This is the place that we all as Christ followers must discover, understand, and live within.
When the false self was killed on the cross - all of my sin and shame were killed. This means that the power they had over me - to be the ONLY force that ran my life - was broken. The false self will be with me until the day I die but I no longer have to follow in its ways. Again this may not seem new - I can read Romans 5-7 and get all of this, my problem is always in the living it out part. How do we continuously walk in the Spirit, and not continually give our members over to serve the false self? And what is this divine union thing and how does that fit in? Because I am constantly wondering how to live more fully with Jesus - abiding - loving - following His heart and desires...
Thomas Merton would say that we need to go through the false self to get to the true self. After all the false self is the one that is covering over the true self. The false self is what emerged after we disobeyed God in the garden. We are all Adam on the outside - disobedient and self-focused. But on the inside the image that God implanted, as He created us, is there waiting to be understood, seen and explored. But we do not know how to do this work. The work is looking at our false self for what it is. We think that the false self is who we are and thus we are reluctant to be rid of it. I even remember saying when I was younger "I just want to be good because I am good, not because someone has declared me that way." But that is simply impossible ... because the shear fact that God has made me - is what makes me good. I CAN NOT be good without God. There is no good without God. Jesus even said this ... 'Only God is good.' The false self will never be who I am... it is merely the twisting of the image of God ... and that twistING can make us very twistED. Our job is to recognize this and stop trying to dress up the false self, or make excuses for it, or placate it, or enable it. We have to realize what it is and call it out. Confess our sin, forgive, and let it go .... and most of all really get that it is NOT ME. This will make the above list so easy ... bc why wouldn't it be easy to lay aside sin, and ask for forgiveness, and humble ourselves, when we can finally see that it is our shadow that is getting in the way again ... covering up our true beauty.
The really hard part is recognizing the true beauty and belovedness that is lying just below the crappy false self. We have so long identified with the crap - that we now see ourselves as crap. And we wonder over and over again why God has gone to such lengths to secure a relationship with us. I spent so much of my younger years stuck there - ruminating on sin - staring at the false self thinking that it was worth looking at ... that somehow it would change if I just willed it enough. I think though that the only thing I received was a fullness of self-loathing.
So then what does it mean to go thru the false self to get to the true self? I think it begins by understanding our condition. We can NOT do this without Jesus. He had to die on the cross for us and take away sin and shame. He had to kill the power of the false self. We have to see our sin for what it is - it separates us from God and from others. So we have to be humbled by our darkened state - see it for its ugliness BUT then also see that that sin soaked false self is NOT who we really are. We have to be able to recognize it for what it is ... a dark worldly covering that only has power when we give it power.
So back to that true created beauty... how do we live there? That is the part I am still struggling to wrap my brain around... so more to come.
When the false self was killed on the cross - all of my sin and shame were killed. This means that the power they had over me - to be the ONLY force that ran my life - was broken. The false self will be with me until the day I die but I no longer have to follow in its ways. Again this may not seem new - I can read Romans 5-7 and get all of this, my problem is always in the living it out part. How do we continuously walk in the Spirit, and not continually give our members over to serve the false self? And what is this divine union thing and how does that fit in? Because I am constantly wondering how to live more fully with Jesus - abiding - loving - following His heart and desires...
Thomas Merton would say that we need to go through the false self to get to the true self. After all the false self is the one that is covering over the true self. The false self is what emerged after we disobeyed God in the garden. We are all Adam on the outside - disobedient and self-focused. But on the inside the image that God implanted, as He created us, is there waiting to be understood, seen and explored. But we do not know how to do this work. The work is looking at our false self for what it is. We think that the false self is who we are and thus we are reluctant to be rid of it. I even remember saying when I was younger "I just want to be good because I am good, not because someone has declared me that way." But that is simply impossible ... because the shear fact that God has made me - is what makes me good. I CAN NOT be good without God. There is no good without God. Jesus even said this ... 'Only God is good.' The false self will never be who I am... it is merely the twisting of the image of God ... and that twistING can make us very twistED. Our job is to recognize this and stop trying to dress up the false self, or make excuses for it, or placate it, or enable it. We have to realize what it is and call it out. Confess our sin, forgive, and let it go .... and most of all really get that it is NOT ME. This will make the above list so easy ... bc why wouldn't it be easy to lay aside sin, and ask for forgiveness, and humble ourselves, when we can finally see that it is our shadow that is getting in the way again ... covering up our true beauty.
The really hard part is recognizing the true beauty and belovedness that is lying just below the crappy false self. We have so long identified with the crap - that we now see ourselves as crap. And we wonder over and over again why God has gone to such lengths to secure a relationship with us. I spent so much of my younger years stuck there - ruminating on sin - staring at the false self thinking that it was worth looking at ... that somehow it would change if I just willed it enough. I think though that the only thing I received was a fullness of self-loathing.
So then what does it mean to go thru the false self to get to the true self? I think it begins by understanding our condition. We can NOT do this without Jesus. He had to die on the cross for us and take away sin and shame. He had to kill the power of the false self. We have to see our sin for what it is - it separates us from God and from others. So we have to be humbled by our darkened state - see it for its ugliness BUT then also see that that sin soaked false self is NOT who we really are. We have to be able to recognize it for what it is ... a dark worldly covering that only has power when we give it power.
So back to that true created beauty... how do we live there? That is the part I am still struggling to wrap my brain around... so more to come.
Saturday, February 4, 2017
false self
I am still trying to figure out this whole false self/true self thing and put it into my own words. I want to be able to explain it to myself and attempt to explain it to a few friends and maybe even teach about it someday in a way that is less ethereal and confusing.
The false self is the part of us that is the old man, our sin nature, the part of us that everyone is born into. However, it does not stay locked up neatly away in a corner of ourselves, it instead pervades everything. It interprets everything in relation to itself. If a circumstance is hard or scary -- it works very hard at protecting us and telling us that we are going to be alright if we just believe this or that (usually a lie) about ourselves. It tells us the lies that we want to hear to make ourselves feel better and cope with the world. So even if something happens that's good ... we will also interpret it in this self-centered, self-affirming way. We can not help this. There is nothing we can do to stop this, this is just what happens when we are born into sin. Everything is made relative to me, because my false self just believes that indeed, all of life revolves around me, and it can believe nothing else. The really great thing is - we all believe this - and so we all join into this great big cult affirming each others lies. We bring our lies - everyone brings theirs and we all lie together affirming what we believe to be the truth. Except the 'truth' that we believe is just the false self trying to convince itself that it is completely fine. And because the false self is similar in each of us - totally self-focused - the lies line up much of the time! So it seems true... and we keep giving the false self more and more power over ourselves. It is incredibly pervasive and reaches into all corners of who we are and who we are becoming ... and even the church jumps on its bandwagon much of the time. Because my false self can make my churchiness or my church related activities about me and my own gain and my own glory. In fact, it is really hard to tell sometimes where my false self begins and where my true self breaks off especially in regards to ministry activities. The false self is really all about self protection. It is about gaining for self, it is about getting whatever will make me happy. This is the space that our idols are born into. This is the space where our inner Adam says 'no' to God and says 'yes' to itself. This is why I want to be seen and heard and noticed. This is where I steal God's story and make it all about me. This is where I decide that all the glory should be shining from me but most especially for me.
This may not sound new. I know I have taken a hard look at my sin nature. I have done a ton of self examination ... actually probably more than I should... probably to the point of it falling back into the prideful category and made it all about my false self again. So what is the point of reexamining it now? For me its about learning it from a slightly new angle ... I am beginning to look at my false self from the vantage point of my true self. Before now, I would have seen this false self and thought that much of it was good and redeemable. I would not have been able to see that the whole of it is steeped in such a big lie that no part of it can come out whole. I also would never have been able to see that all of the false self - everything that it is and has created as my outer person, is actually NONE of who I really am. This is not the real me. It is a shadow. A very dim and twisted picture of only part of who we were designed to be in the image of God.
So if this is NOT who I am - this false self - then what can be done about it? How do we get rid of it? How do we become our true selves? That's the really great news ... that our true self is already with us. Not only are we born with our sin nature but we are born with our true selves because we were created in the image of God. This person that God created us to be IS our true self ... its just that when we are born, the false self covers over our true self because thats all it know how to do to live. It is only when we are born again into salvation that our true self has an opportunity to come out from behind the mask of the false self. Until then it really has no power over the sin nature. This is the whole reason for Gods entire salvation story. He created us so that He would have someone in His image to spend His love on ... but He wanted us to want Him and not just be robots. But we chose the wrong path - we chose ourselves as gods - and pushed aside the One True God. As we did that the false self was born. And we saw Adam and Eve shift blame to one another, to Satan, and to God for the problem - of course not wanting to blame themselves. This is the false self at its best - always working at self-protection. So we get to watch thousands of years unfold in scripture as God works out His salvation plan - so that He might be reunited with His loved ones. Though he has never lost sight of who we are and has never stopped loving us with His magnificent love - we lost sight of Him because we lost sight of who we were designed to be. So thus we never got to have the love relationship we are designed to have ... until Jesus came along. In Jesus we once again have access to the true self because sin and shame were killed on the cross. God's wrath was poured out on Jesus and the Holy Spirit was sent to unite His followers to Himself in a divine union. So those who have the Holy Spirit have this divine union already in us.
The question is why don't I know this, feel this, experience this? This is the question I have been asking for years! How does transformation actually occur? How do I shed sin and live more fully walking in the power of the Holy Spirit? That's what this true self begins to answer....
The false self is the part of us that is the old man, our sin nature, the part of us that everyone is born into. However, it does not stay locked up neatly away in a corner of ourselves, it instead pervades everything. It interprets everything in relation to itself. If a circumstance is hard or scary -- it works very hard at protecting us and telling us that we are going to be alright if we just believe this or that (usually a lie) about ourselves. It tells us the lies that we want to hear to make ourselves feel better and cope with the world. So even if something happens that's good ... we will also interpret it in this self-centered, self-affirming way. We can not help this. There is nothing we can do to stop this, this is just what happens when we are born into sin. Everything is made relative to me, because my false self just believes that indeed, all of life revolves around me, and it can believe nothing else. The really great thing is - we all believe this - and so we all join into this great big cult affirming each others lies. We bring our lies - everyone brings theirs and we all lie together affirming what we believe to be the truth. Except the 'truth' that we believe is just the false self trying to convince itself that it is completely fine. And because the false self is similar in each of us - totally self-focused - the lies line up much of the time! So it seems true... and we keep giving the false self more and more power over ourselves. It is incredibly pervasive and reaches into all corners of who we are and who we are becoming ... and even the church jumps on its bandwagon much of the time. Because my false self can make my churchiness or my church related activities about me and my own gain and my own glory. In fact, it is really hard to tell sometimes where my false self begins and where my true self breaks off especially in regards to ministry activities. The false self is really all about self protection. It is about gaining for self, it is about getting whatever will make me happy. This is the space that our idols are born into. This is the space where our inner Adam says 'no' to God and says 'yes' to itself. This is why I want to be seen and heard and noticed. This is where I steal God's story and make it all about me. This is where I decide that all the glory should be shining from me but most especially for me.
This may not sound new. I know I have taken a hard look at my sin nature. I have done a ton of self examination ... actually probably more than I should... probably to the point of it falling back into the prideful category and made it all about my false self again. So what is the point of reexamining it now? For me its about learning it from a slightly new angle ... I am beginning to look at my false self from the vantage point of my true self. Before now, I would have seen this false self and thought that much of it was good and redeemable. I would not have been able to see that the whole of it is steeped in such a big lie that no part of it can come out whole. I also would never have been able to see that all of the false self - everything that it is and has created as my outer person, is actually NONE of who I really am. This is not the real me. It is a shadow. A very dim and twisted picture of only part of who we were designed to be in the image of God.
So if this is NOT who I am - this false self - then what can be done about it? How do we get rid of it? How do we become our true selves? That's the really great news ... that our true self is already with us. Not only are we born with our sin nature but we are born with our true selves because we were created in the image of God. This person that God created us to be IS our true self ... its just that when we are born, the false self covers over our true self because thats all it know how to do to live. It is only when we are born again into salvation that our true self has an opportunity to come out from behind the mask of the false self. Until then it really has no power over the sin nature. This is the whole reason for Gods entire salvation story. He created us so that He would have someone in His image to spend His love on ... but He wanted us to want Him and not just be robots. But we chose the wrong path - we chose ourselves as gods - and pushed aside the One True God. As we did that the false self was born. And we saw Adam and Eve shift blame to one another, to Satan, and to God for the problem - of course not wanting to blame themselves. This is the false self at its best - always working at self-protection. So we get to watch thousands of years unfold in scripture as God works out His salvation plan - so that He might be reunited with His loved ones. Though he has never lost sight of who we are and has never stopped loving us with His magnificent love - we lost sight of Him because we lost sight of who we were designed to be. So thus we never got to have the love relationship we are designed to have ... until Jesus came along. In Jesus we once again have access to the true self because sin and shame were killed on the cross. God's wrath was poured out on Jesus and the Holy Spirit was sent to unite His followers to Himself in a divine union. So those who have the Holy Spirit have this divine union already in us.
The question is why don't I know this, feel this, experience this? This is the question I have been asking for years! How does transformation actually occur? How do I shed sin and live more fully walking in the power of the Holy Spirit? That's what this true self begins to answer....
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