Everyone wonders who they are and what they are. Each person spends a lifetime trying to secure a self-identity. We figure out some way to find our own social boundaries, to be good to the self, to feel safe, to feel loved. But eventually we find that this search for self goes beyond what we can actually know of our identity. To get greater understanding of our more mysterious and hidden parts that propel us in certain directions, we flounder. The Bible alludes to this eternal dimension to ourselves. “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.. Thou hast known my inward parts, even before I was born” (Psalm 139:14, 16). The only one who knows the full extent of who we are in our completed “self” is the one who created us. We must link ourselves to God, then, to be fully “self.”
Contrary to the cultural trend of looking inside ourselves to find the self,
++ engaging in an assert-a-thon by declaring dozens of things about ourselves with self-affirmations or
++ wallowing in greater and greater introspection / self-absorption (often resulting in depression) or
++ indulging in selfish-me-first-ism behaviors at work and at home, grabbing the only chair left in musical chairs,
the Biblical route to understanding the self is found in the very opposite direction.
We find the answer to discovering our true self sandwiched between two profound verses.
The first: praise becomes the righteous: i.e. looks good on their countenance.
Praise befits the upright (ESV)
Praise is comely for the upright (NIV)
Praise is fitting for the upright (KJV)
As creatures, we were never intended to worship the self as though we were divine creatures. To attempt to do so – to increasingly attempt to love and adore ourselves – ends in destruction. Only God can sustain the weight of ever-increasing praise. He is built for it; we are not. It is not possible to look inside ourselves and come up with a secure, eternal identity. We soon discover that the heart is desperately wicked and cannot know itself – cannot sort out its own motives. We come to know that to search for ourselves in that direction is like entering a cave with no floor.
So, the second verse, then, is related to the poor condition of the heart/soul, due to the Genesis fall of man in the Garden of Eden. We cannot erase this condition except by accepting the blood of Jesus paid for our sins on the cross.
So here is that second verse in various iterations:
· “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)
· “Their heart sets traps for them.” (Jeremiah 9:8)
· “The heart is deceitful and now must bear its guilt.” (Hosea 10:2)
The answer to our dilemma is to switch our focus off from ourselves and set it upon God. When we do that, we miraculously become our true self. Lost in the wonder of Him, lingering around Him, watching how He loves and does things, we are changed. Changed by beholding! God is in the business of making “sons of God” (Romans 8:19) out of the believers He created. This is not something we do to ourselves. He alone does this work of glorification of the human soul. He fashioned us for Himself. It is only in living upon His bosom that we experience the ca-ching of fittedness.
When we praise Him, OUR faces look beautiful (much like a child with a thankful and grateful heart looks pleasing to his parents!). God doesn’t need the praise. He is not an egomaniac. He purposely set Himself up to receive human praise in order to relieve us of the burden/awkwardness and embarrassment of praising ourselves. Consider the momentary anguish in ourselves in a restaurant with all eyes upon us at our birthday party. Such shrinking awkwardness is no accident. Excessive unmerited attention for just existing becomes a social conundrum for our fragile human souls, unable to be in such a spotlight very well.
In summary: the path to find the true self is found in a sure eternal reality that lives between these two verses. There we find the bookends to the self.
In response to the verse, “praise becomes the righteous,” remain a creature in relation to the Creator; don’t jump roles in the universe. Be content with your lot and let God be Lord of all your internal complexity. Rest in the fact that He understands it all and carries it all for you that He, Himself, is making something of you and upon you.
And in response to the verse, “The heart is deceitful…who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9), let His blood atone for you, and look in the other direction – Godward instead of inside your own dark heart. Looking Godward will relieve you of a terrible burden. Get lost in His love and expressing His love and you’ll find the soul’s safe repose.
In living between these two immutable and fixed realities we become the sons of God; Romans 8:19.
