This week's GROW class talked about the true self. When I described the class to a friend, I explained it like this: "Look. We are unconditionally loved as God's children. Somehow though, we have to remember that Christ died for us in our sinfulness, that we were unworthy of saving. Even in our continual mistakes post-choosing to follow Jesus, Christ will still love and accept us. We are to remember that this is true for all believers."
The details go something like this:
We looked to the verses Psalm 139:13-16 and Acts 17:26-27 (yeah Mars Hill!). We remembered that the true self is the person God made us to be, and who we are becoming (the fancy word for that is sanctification).
"It is your total self as you were created by God and as you are being redeemed in Christ."*
We took a moment to reflect on the fall, something I feel God has been so often reminding me of lately. It's as though Genesis 2-3 is coming up in every study or talk I listen to. What keeps being pointed out is this phrase:
"The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame." (Genesis 2:25)
Adam and Eve walked in the garden with God completely vulnerable. Because of their intimacy with Him, they had no reason to fear. But the story continues. Adam was told from the beginning that he was in charge of working and taking care of the Garden of Eden. Interestingly enough, the phrase "taking care" of the garden in the Hebrew really means to defend or guard. What would Adam need to defend the garden from?
A serpent.
A crafty serpent who entices Eve to eat the fruit of a forbidden tree. Adam had failed because he was not performing his duty of protection. Scripture indicates that he was standing right next to Eve while she listened to the serpent and took a bite. Eve had also failed, however, because she knew the truth, but was deceived. The blame may be shifted by so many, but perhaps we forget that by this time, Adam and Eve were one flesh.
The immediate reaction to the fall was a recognition of nakedness. Clothes were made, Adam and Eve hid from the Lord. The domino effect begins for the rest of time. As someone put it, "We've been hiding from God ever since." We hide behind the false images that I had mentioned in a previous post, we hide behind works of righteousness.
We are to find our true self not by working at it, but by seeking God Himself. The Bible study leader gave the metaphor of floating, calling it active passivity. When we float we have to spread ourselves out completely. The hardest part is to tilt our head in such a way that we can not see the floating process. If we were to try to look at what was going on, we'd lose our ability to float. So we actively put ourselves in a position to know God (such as through the Spiritual Disciplines**), but trust that He will do the teaching and transforming.
Another active passivity is our need to repent. A word used later in the Merge talk Sunday evening. So before I get to this, another story:
I was reminded of my absolute favorite story in all of the Chronicles of Narnia. In Voyage of the Dawn Treader (the best book of the series in my opinion), this bratty character named Eustace turns into a dragon. He had found a lair of gold, and began pretending to think and act like a dragon. The problem is, he turns into this monster that no longer can relate to his friends any more. Aslan, who portrays Christ in the series, seeks out Eustace the dragon and tells him to follow Him. They end up at a well where Aslan tells the dragon to jump in, but he must undress first. Eustace tries, and scratches off layer and layer of dragon skin. But still he is a dragon.
"You will have to let me undress you," Aslan says.
And since Eustace also so desperately wanted to be free of the dragon skin, he "just lay flat down on [his] back and let [Aslan] do it."
Repentance is an action in that we look "inward with God in weeping agreement of our condition." But only He can cleanse us. Only He can rip apart our dragon selves and restore us to the child we are. Back to the point where we were naked, and unashamed.
The final comment is to remember that all of us are struggling with the stripping away of the dragon. We are all on this journey, and all are facing some incredible obstacles that hinder us from the nakedness before Christ. So I will end with this quote, that has cut me to the core for over 24 hours now:
"We need to forgive one another for not being God."***
So true.
* The Gift of Being Yourself.
** check out Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline for an incredible look at the Spiritual Disciplines.
*** Spiritual Direction.
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