Good morning…
This is the question grabbing my attention from yesterday’s post Eight Questions To Ponder: “How have I been shaped by the strongest hate and the strongest love?” Asked by the speaker to quickly jot our first response to each of the eight questions, my answer to this question tumbled onto two lists.
Strongest hate: Names of my two most difficult people. Guarded. Fake smile. Straight A’s and lying to self-protect. False self formed to keep my true self safe.
Strongest love: Name of my best childhood friend. God. Writing. Freely loving and being loved just as I am. Soaking in God’s love, my false self is being shed.
During Tuesday night’s service, we were asked to briefly share what we had written with one other person. I chose to share God’s fresh insight about my false self and my true self, how they were shaped by strong hate and strong love.
Now as I sit with these insights, truth deepens down: our false self develops for a very good reason. Safety. Protection. Guarding our true self from conflict, criticism, confrontation. We hide our true self, closing it inside, away from the forces that threaten to crush it. But for many of us there comes a time when our true self clamors for the fresh air of truth; we yearn to be freed from the pressure to perform, to perfect, to please everyone. Our elaborate self-defenses work well for a while, until they do not work anymore. Smiles become fake. Our tender inside self and our tough outside self divide like oil and water, creating a painful, dishonest chasm. When it hurts more to stagnate beneath the layers of our false self, we take the risk of trusting God to be our safety, to provide protection, to gradually grow the gift of our true self, our one-of-a-kind gift this world so needs.
God’s Message:
“Cursed is the strong one
who depends on mere humans,
Who thinks he can make it on muscle alone
and sets God aside as dead weight.
He’s like a tumbleweed on the prairie,
out of touch with the good earth.
He lives rootless and aimless
in a land where nothing grows.
“But blessed is the man who trusts me, God,
the woman who sticks with God.
They’re like trees replanted in Eden,
putting down roots near the rivers—
Never a worry through the hottest of summers,
never dropping a leaf,
Serene and calm through droughts,
bearing fresh fruit every season.
“The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful,
a puzzle that no one can figure out.
But I, God, search the heart
and examine the mind.
I get to the heart of the human.
I get to the root of things.
I treat them as they really are,
not as they pretend to be” (Jeremiah 17:5-10, MSG).
…Sue…
