To Yourself
Coming Home
by: Julie Cloninger, HFL Team
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My true self- your true self- is the self that loves the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and loves our neighbors as ourselves. And if we were true to our deepest longings, we would yearn for love and move closer to the source of love, which is God. But instead, we get impatient for satisfied desires and go after satisfaction rather than God. Humans have been doing this since Adam and Eve.
Eve believed that she could satisfy herself better than God. She believed God couldn’t be trusted. Humans have been trusting themselves over God ever since. Ironically, because of this we aren’t truly satisfied. However, that hasn’t stopped us from developing whole systems of thinking entirely dedicated to immediate satisfaction and apart from God. This is very sad because God is love and the safest most joyful and satisfying place is right in the arms of God.
Repression and addiction are two forces that pull us away from love. “While repression stifles desire, addiction attaches desire, bonds and enslaves the energy of desire to certain specific behaviors, things, or people. These objects of attachment then become preoccupations and obsessions; they come to rule our lives.” (Gerald May in Addiction and Grace)
Yet there always comes times when the obsessions, momentarily perhaps, lift, and our true desires are revealed. We have a pull, or call, towards home. This may happen in an unbidden moment of clarity brought on by regret or a delightful moment after listening to a beautiful song, taking a twilight stroll, watching a good movie, conversing with a friend, reading a
good book, enjoying loving fellowship, or simply taking a bath. God calls us out of our obsession and to himself in what is sometimes a miraculous moment. These times of relief from our obsessions can only come when we have space in our lives. “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness, made his light shine on our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 4:6 So often we stay so busy that we simply do not create space for our souls to breathe or see reality. We keep running on the hamster wheel of work, activity, business, or entertainment. But what we are yearning for is space for our soul. Because we desire, at our core, to be loved and seen by God. Well, I’m here to tell you: he loves you fiercely.
How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. Psalm 36:7
God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8
There is a way back to yourself. As Christians, our way back to our true self is through Jesus. If it sounds confusing and metaphysical, that’s because it is. Jesus went before us and conquered death for the joy that was set before him. Spoiler alert: the joy that was before him was us! So we were in front of him and now he is in front of us- he went ahead of us and