Giving up your self versus/and finding an identity

[Kathrin]

Do you ever struggle with this?

I am somebody who can get evry much into things, really excited about things… often this involves finding a goal/identity in life… I guess that is part of life. On the other hand, we are called to give up our selves.

Sometimes I think the only thing i really want to (or should want to) represent in this world is God’s love.

But still it feels so good to have other identities too - the crazy street musician, the hyper funny one, the poet… How to bring it all together can be difficult.

Anybody else out there thinking about this sometimes?

Kathrin

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Do you ever struggle with this?

I am somebody who can get evry much into things, really excited about things… often this involves finding a goal/identity in life… I guess that is part of life. On the other hand, we are called to give up our selves.

Sometimes I think the only thing i really want to (or should want to) represent in this world is God’s love.

But still it feels so good to have other identities too - the crazy street musician, the hyper funny one, the poet… How to bring it all together can be difficult.

Anybody else out there thinking about this sometimes?

Kathrin

I think you misunderstand. We’re not to give up ourselves, for God made us and wants us to be, ourselves.

What we give up is our “false selves.” These are the mask and emotional programs we created to defend our ego’s, as we grew up.

To truly know God, you will come to know your true self.

Being excited about life? You should be and thank God for it, and be the best person you can. Its your gift back to God.

In Christ Jesus
Jim

 

[Hlafdige]

C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, put it famously:

At the beginning I said there were Personalities in God. I will go further now. There are no real personalities anywhere else. Until you have given up your self to Him you will not have a real self. Sameness is to be found most among the most “natural” men, not among those who surrender to Christ. How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints.

But there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away “blindly” so to speak. Christ will indeed give you a real personality: but you must not go to Him for the sake of that. As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him.

 

[BarbaraTherese]

C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, put it famously:

…beautiful quotation…

 

[Kathrin]

Oh yes, really beautiful!!! Thank you for posting this.

Kathrin