Our Real Self
My five year old daughter has been transitioning into the life of a kindergartener. A long day of learning and playing, being “on stage” for teachers and friends is a lot for little people! After school we found that small happenings at home would set her into an emotional storm. It makes sense developmentally. We understand why. Yet, in those moments, we do not want to leave our kids in the storm of their feelings. Instead we want to help them calm down and grow through the emotion, using words and strategies to prevent an emotional break that leaves them (and us) feeling even more exhausted.
After one particularly hard exchange, I asked her what she thought would help her to calm down when she was feeling really upset. In her sweet innocence she said, “Mom, if you tell me a joke or do something silly, I can calm down. Laughing makes me feel like my real self again.”
I have chewed on that phrase ever since, and God has faithfully fed me a lot in it in His word. What is my “real self”? What or who gets to define that? What does God say my “real self” is? In a time of individualism and a culture of seeking happiness in the material to fill the void, the world would tell me that my “real self” is about, well, me, and whatever I decide makes me “feel happy.” By God’s grace and mercy, He continues to show me that this could not be further from the truth – His Truth.
In John 14:6, Jesus states “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus is the way to abundant life, and in Christ I am my real self. In His ways, I grow into the self that God loved enough to slowly conform into the image of His son through Christ’s death and resurrection (Romans 8:29, Colossians 3:10). In His truth, I grow into the self that God wants to teach and transform through His Word, prayer, fellowship with other Christ followers. In His life – His teachings during His ministry and His resurrection – I grow into the self that is “new” and I die to the self of old, learning to crucify myself in the power of the Holy Spirit (Luke 9:23-25, Galatians 5:24)
Senior Pastor Drew Shoffner* spoke of this “death to self” in his recent sermon in “The Search” series. He said “many of us are not thinking inspired by the Holy Spirit. We are thinking by our own thoughts.” That is certainly true of my life – in my old self and in my flesh. What is the antidote? Seeking God in Christ Jesus. Choosing to live in the reality of God’s grace and mercy a day at a time. It is an experiential knowledge of the redemptive work of Christ in our lives. He went on to say, “Too many of us are egocentric and self-centered, we are more aware of our faults and failures than of Christ’s redemptive work and His power in us.” How many of us are down trodden by, well, ourselves? Our own thoughts and feelings, ideas and ways. The old patterns of being that slowly kill us physically and spiritually.
But that is the old self. And we can certainly all return to those old ways. Or, we can rise and seek Him, repentant of our shortcomings and back sliding because we love Him and trust that His ways are better. They are Life. And they make us alive again spiritually everyday as we learn to submit through confession and prayer, allowing the Scripture to be the strainer for our thoughts and feelings, walking in step with the Spirit in us. This is who we really are as we grow into our “real self” in Christ because of who He is and what He did. His yolk is easy and His burden is light. As we remain in Him, He is faithful to complete this good work in each of us for His glory and our great good.
KB
*Pastor Drew Shofner is the Senior Pastor at The Church at Severn Run in Severn Maryland.