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.
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