Life is a struggle to live the essence of ‘who’ we actually are. What we believe about ourselves is fundamental. First, we must, in the simplest sense, know what we believe. Second, we must align all of life – as far as we can – to this. Third, we must actually endeavour to achieve it, continually, without giving up.
“Knowing” is beyond knowledge. If we ‘know’ God, it’s more than simply knowing about him; it’s more about sensing his will for our lives and being in alignment with it. It’s deeper than head-knowledge for it has infiltrated the heart to the hands.
What This Means
This is about dreams; the dreams that God’s locked into our visceral souls in forming us into vestibules of grace for his very purposes.
We can only do this once we’re happy within ourselves, not that we have to wait to achieve the fullness of this vision we have about ourselves before we start serving. Serving comes first, but living out the specific purposes of our lives is contingent on knowing what we believe.
This is about the particular, very intrinsic, self-image we have stored inside; and that which is also growing in us as we tread this life.
Here enters a conundrum:
We cannot truly know what we believe until we begin living it. We have to try it out before we know it’s what we believe. Knowledge and belief, then, are the opposite though complementary sides of the same coin. We must start from somewhere. It doesn’t really matter where.
The Vision to Live for
The greatest reality anyone can know is one of total conscious congruence—heart and mind as one, as God is One.
This simply means, as a vision then, we’re at a delightful sense of bliss, for the most part, because all dissonance has been dealt with. Very little that is done disagrees with the self-image, and those that do have ‘a way back,’ basically through repentance and self-forgiveness in that moment the self-transgression occurs.
It’s the dedication to truth that’s lived out in this life as it has struggled and won the battle over self, merging the two great poles, i.e. destiny with reality; at least so far as the present is concerned.
Where God ‘Fits In’
God always fits in. God owns the game; he created the rules and runs the operation, right down to the very self-concept we have about ourselves, and how we’ve dealt with those difficulties and doubts that are ever before us. God’s there with us in all of it.
Self-awareness is not apart from God—it’s inherent to God.
In this we’re aided by enquiring of the Spirit. Only the Spirit can help us truly know ourselves through holy (i.e. true) revelation.
Knowing our true selves, then, and living this reality out could be as simple as being dedicated to the truth and to God, or it can be as hard as committing ‘softly’ or in a diluted sense. We all know the latter very well. The former is never quite as natural.
We must know; God’s in the business of giving.
This is a continual reality of life. We are to continually invest and maintain this struggle for what many call ‘self-actualisation’.
© 2010 S. J. Wickham.
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