BECOMING YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF

THE PATHWAY TO HEALTHY SPIRITUALITY - LESSON 7

BECOMING YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF

Augustine wrote “How can you draw close to God when you are far from your own self?”  He prayed, “Grant, Lord that I may know myself that I may know you”.   

St. Teresa of Avila wrote “Almost all problems in the spiritual life stem from a lack of self-knowledge”  I would have to agree. 
   

We talked briefly in our last lesson about the practices in a Christian’s life that may or may not be part of our current journey.  I added one that I know Pastor Peter would agree with but was not part of his list in his book “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality” – the practice of daily self-reflection/ self-examination (Psalm 139).  I mentioned that this practice is one that is highly encouraged in the 12 Step Program.. it’s Step 10 – ‘daily take a personal inventory of ourselves, and when we are wrong, promptly admit it’.  People in recovery understand the need for keeping short accounts in order to stay healthy & sober.. people in recovery also understand the huge need for self-examination and reflection.  ALL PEOPLE  should realize it’s importance.  We all have blind spots.. if we are going to eliminate them, we have to take the time to allow God to search us and then be willing to face what He reveals.

When we consider this lesson about becoming our ‘authentic self’, we must realize that doing Step 10 – our self-examination has to be a priority.  Sadly, most people are clueless about who they are these days… and sadly, most people who do, don’t like who they are.  Most are living someone else's life or someone else’s expectations of them.  So how do we get there?  How do we find our authentic self?  We have to first start out with owning our emotions. Researchers have classified them into some main groupings:

§        Anger (fury, hostility, irritability, annoyance, frustration)

§        Sadness (grief, self-pity, despair, dejection, loneliness)

§        Fear (anxiety, edginess, nervousness, fright, terror, apprehension)

§        Enjoyment (joy, relief, contentment, delight, thrill, euphoria, ecstasy)

§        Love (acceptance, trust, devotion, adoration)

§        Surprise (shock, amazement, wonder)

§        Disgust (contempt, scorn, aversion, distaste, revulsion)

§        Shame (guilt, remorse, humiliation, embarrassment, chagrin)

Once we identify them/ name them, we need to express them – the goal is to express them in a healthy manner but.. oftentimes when we haven’t allowed ourselves to ‘feel’ for so long, we don’t know how and we may have never seen a healthy model of expression either.  

Pastor Peter learned some things about non-expression the hard way.  He says "to deny our pain, losses and feelings year after year, we become less and less human.  We transform slowly into empty shells with smiley faces painted on them.  Sad to say, that is the fruit of much of our discipleship in our churches.”  When he began to allow himself to feel, he also began to understand that the failure to appreciate the biblical place of feelings within our Christian lives has done extensive damage, keeping people in slavery – and he was one of them.

Give yourself permission to feel and know it is Biblically correct.  God feels.  You feel.  God thinks.  You think.  God wills.  You will.  We are human beings made in His likeness and part of His likeness is to feel.  

Biblical support that God feels:   
Genesis 6:6 – grieved, 
Exodus 20:5 – jealous, 
Hosea 11:8 – compassion, 
Matthew 26:37-38 – sorrowful, 
Mark 3:5 – anger, 
Luke 10:21 – full of joy

If you were like me and had frozen feelings or perhaps you are totally unaware of your emotions, you may struggle with some of the following beliefs/ excuses of which we need to attend to:

§        I’m just not good at feelings and I really don’t have time for this.  My family was more about ‘doing’.

§        I don’t know what I am feeling – it’s all a big blur.

§        At times, when I am going to interact with authority figures or somebody I don’t know, I get physical sensations but I don’t know why it is happening (that’s an indication you are feeling something – often our bodies react/ feel before it registers in our minds anyway)

§        Sometimes I’m flooded by emotions that disorganize and confuse me.

§        After a difficult meeting with someone (conflict), I get depressed and I don’t know why

§        When I feel bad, I can’t tell if I’m scared or angry

§        I carry an overwhelming feeling that I am shameful, guilty and/or defective

§        I was taught that nice girls don’t get angry and big boys don’t cry (I read a book by Bill Hybel’s wife – he is the pastor of Willowcreek Community Church in Chicago – Good girls don’t change the world – she talks about her own journey out of depression and how for years she was a ‘false self’.. after getting counseling and help, she wrote this book which again, establishes the truth and need for us to deal with the stuff underneath that iceberg and come into our authentic self)

Truth: one of our greatest obstacles to knowing and loving God is our own lack of self-knowledge and authenticity.  We end up wearing masks before God (as if we could really hide something) 

In ‘The Cry of the Soul’, Dan Allender and Tremper Longman summarize why awareness of our feelings is so important:

“Ignoring our emotions is turning our back on reality.  Listening to our emotions ushers us into reality. And reality is where we meet God...Emotions are the language of the soul. They are the cry that gives the heart a voice…However, we often turn a deaf ear – through emotional denial, distortion, or disengagement.  We strain out anything disturbing in order to gain tenuous control of our inner world.  We are frightened and ashamed of hat leaks into our consciousness. In neglecting our intense emotions, we are false to our selves and lose a wonderful opportunity to know god. We forget that change comes through brutal honesty and vulnerability before God.”

One way we have discussed in prior classes that helps us in allowing ourselves to experience the full weight of emotion is to journal our feelings without censoring them.  This is a very helpful exercise.. difficult at times, but helpful… Interesting that Pastor Peter now considers experiencing the full weight of emotion, expressing them, going over them prayerfully and thoughtfully after that expression and allowing God to speak to you in the midst is the first step to real discipleship.  I agree!   

How to get started:

Journal, share, express your feelings about:

-        the church (your church/ the Body of Christ)

-        your life (this encompasses a lot – your work, ministry, character)

-        the different relationships you have (spouse, friends, family members, children)

KNOW YOURSELF THAT YOU MAY KNOW GOD

THE TEMPTATION TOWARD A FALSE SELF

Luke 4:1-13 – Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness outline three false identities or masks that Satan offers each of us.  These thoughts come from Pastor Peter Scazzero.  Before Jesus enters the wilderness we see Him in the river with John the Baptizer when the Spirit descends on Him as a dove and we hear the confirming words from the Father of who He is – Matthew 3:17, “This is my son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased” – oh.. words we all need to hear from the Father and He speaks them to us regularly – but do we hear?  Do we listen?  So what do we see in this? – We see/ hear God affirming Jesus – You are lovable.  You are good.  It is good that you exist.  Several statements that counter many of the lies we believe.  

At this point, Jesus hasn’t performed any miracles or died on the cross.  Nonetheless, he receives an experiential affirmation that he is deeply loved for who HE IS – not what he does.  There is a huge message here for us!!  Now.. we can chose to dismiss this and say.. yeah but.. He was the son of God… This same love and acceptance is available to all of us through Jesus Christ – it is real!  It is true!

Peter Scazzero is quoted in his book saying.. I love this: “Living and swimming in the river of God’s deep love for us in Christ is at the very heart of true spirituality.  Soaking in this love enables us to surrender to God’s will, especially when it seems so contrary to what we can see, feel, or figure out ourselves.  This experiential knowing of God’s love and acceptance provides the only sure foundation for loving and accepting our true selves.  Only the love of God in Christ is capable of bearing the weight of our true identity.”  Love it!

Before we go into some of the lies that threaten us and keep us from fully experiencing God’s love, let’s have a look at what it will take to experience the perfect love the Bible talks about. 
 

-        Love is the most positive of our emotions and the first of the fruit of the Spirit

-        Truth is: few people ever fully experience love.  Studies relate that 90% of married couples ever do.

-        There are 4 definitions for love:  1. love is the ability to put others before ourselves 2. love is to accept someone else exactly as they are.  3. Love is never having to say I’m sorry (from the movie Love Story), and 4. Love is emotional fulfillment.  Biblical definitions of: phileo - friendship, eros - romantic, agape - unconditional

-        The Bible challenges us to experience perfect love.  Why would we be satisfied with anything less? Don’t!   1John 4:7 says “ ⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  – so.. those who do not love, do not know God.  Why?  Because the basic attribute of God is LOVE!  He is LOVE!

So.. how do we get there?  How do we get to a place of being able to experience this kind of perfect love?

1.    We must realize that this perfect love must and does start with God!  This is not something we ‘muster up’ inside of ourselves.  However, we can believe that God has given us the ability and potential to fully love – read 1 John 4

2.    Perfect love demands a breaking process.  We all of the tendency to be self-centered.  Therefore, God uses crises and a variety of things to break us… bring us to a place of humility and willingness.

3.    Perfect love can be stymied by our personal hang-ups – therefore, we have to deal with our personal hang-ups.  1John 4:18 “there is no fear in love, perfect love casts out fear”.. Love truly has the potential to cast out all our fears – now that’s exciting!!!

4.    Perfect love often puts others before ourselves.  Eric Fromm is quoted in one of his books as saying “…in the very act of giving, we experience strength, wealth, and power…giving is more joyous than receiving, not because it is a deprivation, but because in the act of giving lies the expression of our aliveness” – and I might add, our love.  Now.. I think it is important to mention at this point that if we do not practice self-care and deal with our issues and discover who we are, we will never ‘fully love’..  Loving and serving others has to come from within.. if we have nothing to give because we have never attended to the self, we are not going to be able to fulfill God’s call for us to love well.

5.      Perfect love is a willingness to hurt with others.   We need to embrace our urges of compassion…  ‘rejoice with others but also be willing to ‘weep with those who weep’ as God’s word instructs.  1 John 3:17 (New International Version)

¹⁷ If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be that person?

THE PATHWAY TO HEALTHY SPIRITUALITY - LESSON 7 – GROUP WORK   “BECOMING YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF & THE TEMPTATION TOWARD A FALSE SELF”

1.       As we consider becoming our authentic self, we see the importance of identifying and expressing our feelings.  Of the categories shared, which do you find easiest to express in a healthy manner for you personally and which are the more difficult for you?

2.       Of the list of struggles/ beliefs shared this evening, which are areas you are having to press through in order to feel?

3.       Share your thoughts and reactions to Peter Scazzero’s quote: “Living and swimming in the river of God’s deep love for us in Christ is at the very heart of true spirituality.  Soaking in this love enables us to surrender to God’s will, especially when it seems so contrary to what we can see, feel, or figure out ourselves.  This experiential knowing of God’s love and acceptance provides the only sure foundation for loving and accepting our true selves.  Only the love of God in Christ is capable of bearing the weight of our true identity.” 

4.       On a scale from 1-10, share your present condition as it relates to experiencing love:  for God, from God, from others, for others.  Of the list we went through, what are those that God is showing you that need to be focused on to bring the # up on the scale?

Homework:  this week, pick one of these categories and practice .. Journal, share, express your feelings about:

-        the church (your church/ the Body of Christ)

-        your life (this encompasses a lot – your work, ministry, character)

-        the different relationships you have (spouse, friends, family members, children)