When I eventually surrendered to Jesus, one of the most difficult things I realized was that I had lived for 22 years without ever truly stopping to question why I was living the way that I was. Why did I like to do the things I did? Why did I pursue certain interests, and hate others so much? Why was I so passionate about some social issues, while ignoring others that were arguably more unsettling? It was so overwhelming to realize I had wasted years living so loudly as “Mati” without reflecting on what was shaping and influencing me.
I lived with the intention of discovering my “truest self” for years. I personally thought that a life without rules, boundaries, or religious ideologies would be the best place to find my true self. (Because what if my true self loved all the things that religion hated?) It all made sense to me. The best way I saw to figure myself out was to get rid of rules, try everything, and see what felt right. I wanted to learn lessons for myself. I wanted freedom to do everything I wanted. I desired to live an adventurous, spontaneous life. And some tiny part of me also cared about being a kind person, so in my mind, I wasn’t actually hurting anyone.
The problem with this logic is, the worst thing you could ever do if you’re looking for freedom or truth is to set out to satisfy every human desire you feel in your heart. I know this firsthand, because in my own pursuit of freedom and finding myself I ended up a lonely, miserable, hopeless addict, without any direction or substance to my life. I was always craving the next thing that could possibly distract me from the reality of my brokenness. When you’re looking to discover who your human self is in its entirety, you’ll find that the truest natural state of every human being is poisoned with sin, selfishness, lust, hate, anger, and insatiable desires for more. Uncovering the true nature of your humanness will leave you in a dark, endless pit.
So then, what do we do?
Let’s paint a picture. If I were to hand an iPhone to you, and you had never seen technology before, and told you to figure out the best use for the phone, how successful would you be? You may figure out how to turn it on after pressing all the buttons, but you’d never be able to maneuver the internet, download apps, or even use the camera without guidance! You might never even get past the step of turning the phone on, and give up in frustration without realizing you were holding the most useful communication tool of all time! Now, how arrogant would it be if Steve Jobs, the creator of the phone, was standing in front of you telling you exactly how to use the phone, only for you to dismiss him and say “Nah I want to figure it out myself.” The phone will never be utilized to its full potential. You are going to feel lost and frustrated if you don’t accept the help of the creator.
I think this is why Jesus tells us in Matthew 16 that whoever looks for their life will lose it, but the one who loses their life to pursue Him finds their life (Matthew 16:25). Our Creator has given us complete and total access to His user’s manual of humanness in the Bible. He has plainly stated in His Word that because of sin, our default human state is miserable. Sure, we might find temporary happiness in sex, money, or other pleasures, but ultimately, we can all agree that we’re still looking for the thing that will quiet the desire in us to figure out who we really are and why we’re really here.
Jesus also says that in order to kill the part of us that makes us miserable, we must “lose” our lives to be able to be in relationship with Him. This sounds really extreme, to give your life to someone in exchange for something better to be gifted to you, and it is extreme. But here’s the crazy thing - if you haven’t made this exchange with Jesus yet, you’re already making a different exchange every single day with Satan, the ruler of this earth.
Before you freak out, let me explain: there are only two forces on this earth acting upon us humans. There’s God who is everything good, everything loving, everything just, and everything holy. Then there’s a force opposing God, who wants nothing more than to destroy the good things God has made, that’s satan. (John 10:10) There is no third mysterious neutral human force working in us, because we aren’t born in a neutral state. You are either with God or you’re against Him. (Ephesians 6:12)
By this logic, our humanness has been inspired by Satan to oppose God because we live in a sinful world that is, for now, ruled by him and his demons. Our default state, if we aren’t surrendered to Jesus, will always tend to rebel against God instead of lean towards Him. And Satan will do whatever he can, and use whatever he wants on this earth to fuel our natural, fleshly anti-Godness.
He might use the family dynamic in your childhood to create destructive patterns in you. He might use the media you consume to pervert your view of sex and relationships. He might use your friendships to breed distrust, jealousy, or selfishness in you. He’s definitely going to use the fake pleasures of this world like money, drugs, and alcohol to lead you to make decisions that will haunt you.
You might think a life without God’s law is the freest life you could live, I know I did. The reality is, if you aren’t following God, your life is just being shaped in a different way by a different force. You aren’t as free as you think you are.
Satan wants to keep you living like this. He wants nothing more than to make your time here on earth a murky and unsatisfactory quest for who you are supposed to be and what you're supposed to be doing, because in the end, his goal is to keep you separated from God forever in hell. He wants to keep you a copy and paste of your surroundings and environment. No originality, not fulfilling God’s purpose for you, just another miserable human living under His influence. You can only have one or the other: God’s plan, or Satan’s distraction.
This leaves us in a bit of a pickle, because coming to the realization that we will always be a slave to one of these masters leaves us with a choice. Which one do we pick? Well, the answer seems simple enough to me. We trust the One that made us to tell us how we work best.
If God, in all His power, love and infinite knowledge saw it fit to create you on purpose, don’t you think He’s made you with a purpose in mind? All of your bells and whistles, talents and gifts, thoughts and ideas, doesn’t it make sense that He's the only one that can reveal why He made you that way? As we start to turn from an inner focused “us” search and into an outward focused asking God search, we’ll begin to discover the truth He has spoke throughout all of scripture: He created you to be in relationship with Him. So the only way to find yourself, is to spend time learning from Jesus Himself.
There’s a part of ourselves that we need to put to death. This self (our flesh) is the one that is a product of the influence of our family, childhood trauma, political views, sexual encounters, rejections and affirmations, culture, friendships, and media. This self is a bottomless pit of empty promises of answers and satisfaction.
The self we are supposed to find isn’t really “our” self at all. It’s the Spirit of the Living God.
The self we are supposed to find is in the person of Jesus Christ, who saw our bottomless pit self and showed mercy on us. Since the beginning of time, He knew God’s plan was to be in beautiful and perfect relationship with His creation, us humans. He also knew the enemy would do everything in His power to destroy God’s creation, and keep us from experiencing the goodness he will never get to receive himself.
To bridge the gap for us, Jesus gave His perfect self in exchange for our sinful self. Whoever looks for their human life, will lose in the end. But whoever loses their life, by putting their human life to death and accepting the life of Jesus Christ, will find life abundantly. Jesus doesn’t want you to be chained to the things the enemy has thrown at you in this world. He wants you in relationship with Him, so He can show you exactly who He created you to be.
I spent years telling myself that religion and Jesus were mere constructs that had been misused by old people to stifle my fun lifestyle. But in all actuality, Jesus is the ONLY thing I’ve ever tried that has made a difference in my quest to find myself. Jesus is the only one who knows who I am, because He created me. As I stopped living a me-centered life and started searching for Him over everything, something miraculous happened. The less I thought about me, the more and more I started to feel like I was becoming who I was meant to be. He brought freedom and clarity and direction. He brought a “why” to my “what”. The different dreams and desires I had hidden deep in my heart have slowly been brought to the surface, and He connected the dots.
The person I thought I was for years couldn’t have been more opposite than who God had intended me to be. My biggest strengths now were buried under years of shame and addiction and hurt for a long time. You would be so surprised by the real you, the one that God has a plan for. The one God knit together in the depths of the earth. There is a true, intended, created version of you, but even more importantly, you have an intentional, merciful, and loving Creator that wants you to know every part of Him like He knows you.