BEING TRUE TO OURSELVES

 

We continually obsess over the question, “Who am I, and how should I live?” Generally, we define ourselves by the expectations of society and whether we perform up to these expectations. However, the need to conform to society can be oppressive. To escape, we try to be true to ourselves, as the late writer André Gide had affirmed:

·       It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not. 

 

But what are we? Just a collection of changing feelings? Therefore, we ask, “Is there a definitive source by which we can settle the who-am-I question, apart from a slavish conformity to the standards of society?” But do we want the truth or instead, a temporary feel-good answer? The fact that we continue to ask this question might even serve as evidence that we really do not want the truth, perhaps because it is simply too painful to face. Had we really wanted the truth, perhaps we would have found it by now, like other self-evident truths – I like eating mushrooms more than writing poetry.

 

Perhaps there is no objective answer to our question. Perhaps we just need to adopt an identity that comfortably fits us, like choosing a suit of clothing, but don’t be surprised to find that such a self-definition changes every day. But perhaps another analogy, like managing our car, might be more fitting. In the latter case, there are objectively correct answers. We find that we must pump the gas into the gas tank and not into the radiator and fill the radiator with water and not the gas tank. If we fail to learn these truths, we will have to pay the price for our ignorance.

 

What must we pump into our psychological gas tank? Our psychological needs are so demanding that they drown out everything else that might come in our way, even the truth. We need to be loved and even adored. King Herod had been an astute politician, but so too were the ambassadors who were sent to him from Tyre and Sidon to buy grain for their hungry cities.

 

As the king made them first sit through his self-glorifying oration, they knew exactly what to tell the king: “The voice of a god, and not of a man!” (Acts 12:22). All the parties were aware that these words were intended to manipulate the king, but the ambassadors also knew that this would soften the king to their request.

 

Pathetic? Yes! Human? Very much so! Even if a message is unbelievable, we embrace it because it feels good.

 

One woman had written on her Facebook Timeline: “I DON‘T BELIEVE IN ANYTHING !!!” She thought that this belief would set her free from her need for social approval so she could be her “authentic self.” She had also written, “I don’t believe in the existence of a ‘must,’” meaning any moral requirement that might constrain or judge her. However, contrary to her hope, this will not free from her moral nature. Instead, it will subject her to her unchecked desires, fears, angers, and eventually hopelessness. How? When we violate our moral nature, we are coerced to rationalize our behavior. But when we live in harmony with our moral nature, we experience peace. Therefore, optimal self-care requires knowledge of our nature, as we need to know our car’s requirements so that we can optimally manage it. Resisting our nature is like a fish insisting that he should be able to leave his watery home to walk on the land

 

I think it is a mistake to think that living in accord with the “real” me is a matter of acting-out our unrestrained feelings. Instead, we must re-visit the question, “Is there a real me or just an infantile or animal me?”

Who then is the real me, and how do I know that I have discovered this elusive person? This is an important set of questions. Is it just a matter of living in accordance with our feelings? Accurate answers are necessary for our well-being. Why? Whatever we manage well, we must understand well, whether it is a matter of taking care of our car, clothing, or even ourselves. Therefore, self-knowledge is of critical importance, whether it is regarding our common humanity or our personal distinctions.

 

This question is also intimately connected to the meaning of life. The late novelist, Norman Mailer, had confessed:

 

·       “We are healthier if we think there is some importance in what we’re doing…When it seems like my life is meaningless, I feel closer to despair.”

 

It seems that Mailer realized that he could not merely create his own meaning and self-definition. Instead, it had to be discovered within the fabric of objective reality, within the context of the “must” of our moral nature.

 

According to sociologist David Karp, secularism slams the door on any meaning that transcends the material realm of performance and the evolving standards of society:

 

·       “Cosmopolitan medicine banishes that knowledge [of meaning] by insisting that suffering is without meaning and unnecessary… [Suffering is] secularized as mechanical mishaps, and so stripped of their stories, the spiritual ramifications and missing pieces of history that make meaning." (Speaking of Sadness, pg. 191)

 

Secularism is purposely silent regarding the existence of any hope beyond this material world. Instead, it is constrained to limit its focus to our pleasures and achievements. However, we need far more than this.

 

King Solomon had everything that any man would desire – power, respect, money, wisdom, and multiple wives. Nevertheless, he hated life because his great wisdom was unable to plummet its meaning. It could not answer the ultimate questions. In the Book of Ecclesiastes, he had written:

 

·       “The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise?” I said to myself, “This too is meaningless...So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me...I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun...A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil...” (Ecclesiastes 2:14-15, 17-18, 24)

 

·       “Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals...As one dies, so dies the other...humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless...Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?” So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?” (Ecclesiastes 3:19, 21-22)

 

Without a transcendent meaning and hope to define us, we shrivel and die in the face of suffering. The late psychiatrist Victor Frankl observed, during his internment in a National Socialist death camp, that: “The prisoner who had lost faith in the future…was doomed.”

 

While we are living in the death camp, escape and survival should be reasonable hopes. However, once we escape, we find ourselves in the “death camp” of a temporary and meaningless life. It might offer its temporary joys, but they become increasingly elusive as annihilation knocks more fervently at our door.

 

Meanwhile, we become nauseated of our slavish tactics to fulfill our psychological need to impress others. What had once promised freedom has become our holding-cell as we await death’s inevitable arrival.

 

Is there a true self, which will shed light on a true hope and a purpose for our lives? This is a question about truth rather than a subjective grasping at the wind. It is a matter of discovery and not of an arbitrary a creation of our own personal truth. It is a matter of confronting and accepting ourselves as we are, no matter how painful this might be. It is also a matter of mourning over our dark-side, our brokenness.

How do we know that we are really in touch with ourselves? Jesus taught that the blessedness of humanity must start with the painful awareness of our neediness:

 

·       “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn [over their sin], for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” (Matthew 5:3-6)

 

The way up is, ironically, the way down. Jesus taught that when we can acknowledge our moral poverty, to mourn over it, and to hunger for what our soul truly craves – righteousness – we are at the doorway of the answer to our questions. We are to be defined by our Creator and Redeemer, the One who has proved His love and forgiveness by dying in place of what our sins deserve. Once we grasp this, our greatest joy and satisfaction is to live for Him.

 

What then is true self-knowledge, but the truth about our God-given moral standard, our failures to keep them, along with the ever-present mercies and forgiveness of God for any who will humble themselves to confess their sins to Him.

 

Fundamentally, we are relational. It started with the love relationship embodied in the Trinity, and it then radiated out to include us. Consequently, to deny this basic truth is to deny ourselves. When we are not defined by this eternal relationship, we are compelled to find inferior and costly substitutes through co-dependent relationships, which can only temporarily satisfy our needs.

 

Do we have evidence that Jesus must be our ultimate Source of well-being? I think so.  Dag Hammarskjold, a late Secretary General of the UN, observed:

·       God does not die in the day we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illuminated by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond reason. (Markings)

 

According to the Deist Ben Franklin, we even need God for a moral society:

 

·       “If men are wicked with religion, what would they be without it?” (Os Guinness, The Journey, 119)

The benefits even extend to our most intimate relationships, as former atheist, Patrick Glynn, reports:

• A 1978 study found that church attendance predicted marital satisfaction better than any other single variable. Couples in long-lasting marriages who were surveyed in another study listed religion as one of the most important “prescriptions” of a happy marriage. (God: The Evidence, 64)
  

For most Christians, such observations are as predictable as night following day. We have long seen how the Lord and His wisdom salvage our relationships. Glynn also relates religious belief to better physical and emotional payoffs:

 

·       Religious belief is one of the most consistent correlates of overall mental health and happiness. Study after study has shown a powerful relationship between religious belief and practice, on the one hand, and healthy behaviors with regard to such problems as suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, divorce, depression, even, perhaps surprisingly, levels of sexual satisfaction in marriage, on the other” (Glynn, 61).

 

I can also attest to this. Assurance of  the love of Christ has freed me from my self-delusions (John 8:31-32), enabling me to accept myself and to take responsibility for my failures.

 

In contrast to this, the atheist experience is admittedly dismal, although it might commence with a sense of freedom from guilt and constraints. Jean-Paul Sartre confessed that, “Atheism is a cruel, long-term business.” Bertrand Russell described his atheistic religion in this manner:

·       The life of man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain… Brief and powerless is mean’s life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way. (Why I am not a Christian)

 

H.J. Blackham, a former director of the British Humanist Association, wrote:

 

·       The most drastic objection to humanism is that it is too bad to be true. The world is one vast tomb if humans are ephemeral and human life itself is doomed to ultimate extinction… There is no end to hiding from the ultimate end of life, which is death. But it does not avail. On humanist assumptions, life leads to nothing, and every pretense that it does not is a deceit. (Guinness, 106)

 

Perhaps their experience is dismal because their beliefs violate their nature. However, does any of this offer any objective evidence for the existence of the God of the Bible? I would say so. The things that Christians choose bring objective benefits.

 

Many claim that our faith is the product of human invention and not of truth. However, delusion is strongly associated with costs and not benefits. If we are deluded or simply mistaken about which roads to take to get to our destination, our trip will be more costly. Why then, if Christians are deluded, do we derive unmistakable benefits from their “delusion?” Instead, it seems that Christians are doing something right and in-touch with a reality, which eludes others.

 

Is it possible to flourish through distorted thinking? Atheists claim that a belief in God is a matter of gross self-delusion. They have many pejorative phrases to describe faith in God: “imaginary friend,” “big-daddy in the sky,” “complete nonsense,” or “self-delusion.”

 

However, these charges do not seem to be consistent with the reality of Christian lives and societies. Delusions put us out-of-touch with reality, especially a “delusion” at the center of our entire lives. Consequently, the “God-delusion” should distort any decision-making.

 

Why? Just consider riding your bicycle blindfolded. You would soon crash incurring great costs. Closer to home, consider someone who navigates life with rose colored glasses. He might think that all women secretly love him, and this might give him a temporary high, but it might also lead him to stalk women thinking that they were just playing hard-to-get. I knew such a man who was arrested repeatedly for “harassment” because of his cognitive distortion.

 

Cognitive distortions inevitably cost. Consider the woman who was confident that she was performing better on the job than she really was. Consequently, she saw no need for improvement and was eventually fired.

 

Or consider people who thought that they were treating others caringly when they really were not. Eventually, they would lose their friends.

 

Distorted thinking costs. In All in the Playing, Shirley MacLaine confidently explained her distorting faith:

·       I went on to express my feeling of total responsibility and power for all events that occur in the world because the world is happening only in my reality. And human beings feeling pain, terror, depression, panic, and so forth, were really only aspects of pain, terror, depression, panic, and so on, in me!

 

How would such distorted thinking affect her relationships? Wikipedia concluded its post on MacLaine this way:

·       In 2015, she sparked criticism for her comments on Jews, Christians, and Stephen Hawking. In particular she claimed that victims of the Nazi Holocaust were experiencing the results of their own karma, and suggested that Hawking subconsciously caused himself to develop ALS as a means to focus better on physics.

 

Understandably, her thinking created relational problems. Why then do those who believe in a “heavenly Christian sky-daddy” – an all-encompassing “delusion” – make positive adjustments, while others do not?

 

Perhaps instead, Christians are onto something real. But how? By a Book written two thousand years ago? How would following the Bible written by camel-drivers and shepherds enable us to successfully navigate life? It would be like expecting a buggy-whip to help us drive our Audi.

 

It seems that the Christian has more than a buggy-whip in hand. Rather, it is the Biblical guidance that had built the once-great Christian West.