But you, O Sovereign LORD, deal well with me for your name’s sake;
out of the goodness of your love, deliver me.
For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.
--King David, Psalm 109:21
Am I really a man? Have I got what it takes...when it counts? Most men live their lives haunted by that question, or crippled by the answer they've been given.
--John Eldredge, Wild at Heart
When I was a boy I didn't get to spend as much time with my dad as I would have liked. He was a farmer and worked hard to take care of our family, often from dawn till dusk. One effect this had on me was that I started to believe I was less important to dad than the farm work or his other responsibilities (he served on supervisory boards for several organizations). Now I always knew dad loved me, there was never a question of that. But the subtle lie crept into my psyche anyway. It wasn't until many years later when I read Wild at Heart and spent time in prayer and self reflection that I realized dad's "absence" represented a wound to my young heart that carried over into adulthood, manifested as a form of diminishment, aka inferiority complex or low self esteem.
It is amazing how the wounds of our youth shape our personality in very significant ways, and how unaware we can be of it...consciously at least. Feeling inferior really hindered me from trying many things for fear of failing (for example, I didn't like...no, I hated competitive sports). To me, the answer to the question "Am I really a man?" was something like: "Well, probably...but not nearly as good as most". One classic mistake I made was to take my question to the woman. Somehow I felt that if a woman noticed me or felt that I was special, well then I must be special! One problem with that was I was so shy that most women didn't notice me. But if they did and we became friends, my sense of worth seemed to be based on what they thought of me at any given time, kind of like they were my report card. And if they decided they weren't interested anymore, I was devastated.
Although some wounds are more evident or traumatic than others, everyone has taken them (for example, my father's 'absence'). And each wound comes with a message (for me it was "I am not that important"), and from that place we take a vow (my vow was "I accept that I am inferior...it is just the way it is") and choose a way of life that is dysfunctional in order to diminish the pain (I avoided competition, withdrew from many social engagements to avoid feeling inferior to others, especially those who were the "life of the party"). Eldredge calls this way of living (or rather, surviving) the "false self". We don't live out of a center, and we often aren't aware of the root cause.
Fortunately God loves us enough to not leave us in that place if we want freedom and healing. But the process may be painful. We have to come to the end of our own efforts of "making life work" and reach out to him. I came to the end of myself about 10 years ago (more on that in a future post!). Through some of the process I felt almost like I couldn't bear the emotional pain though, almost as though I was self destructing. Eldredge in Wild at Heart calls this process the failing, or shattering of the "false self". An entertaining taste of how I felt is on the YouTube clip below (click on picture below to view, or http://youtu.be/8M7mM_iHd9I). It is a scene from Star Trek III of the destruction of the beloved USS Enterprise. To make a long story short, Captain Kirk self destructs the ship in order to save his and the lives of his officers (in Dr. McCoy's words, Kirk used death to give them a fighting chance to live). A fitting analogy.
A brief disclaimer.
I dearly love my dad and I know he loves me. This post isn't about my dad's failures because Lord knows I wasn't the perfect parent to my beautiful daughter either. Dad did more right than he ever did wrong. I share this with you because it is a part of my journey where I suffered and God clearly rescued me, and some of you may relate to it in some way.
Click "Read more" below for a brief excerpt from Wild at Heart (John Eldredge) about the concept of the "False Self":
So God must take it all away. He thwarts our plan for salvation; he shatters the false self. Our plan for redemption is hard to let go of; it clings to our hearts like an octopus.
Why would God do something so terrible as to wound us in the place of our deepest wound? Jesus warned us that "whoever wants to save his life will lose it" (Luke 9:24). Christ is not using the word bios here; he's not talking about our physical life. The passage is not about trying to save your skin by ducking martyrdom or something like that. The word Christ uses for "life" is the word psyche-the word for our soul, our inner self, our heart. He says that the things we do to save our psyche, our self, those plans to save and protect our inner life-those are the things that will actually destroy us. "There is a way that seems right to a man but in the end it leads to death," says Proverbs 16:25. The false self, our plan for redemption, seems so right to us. It shields us from pain and secures us a little love and admiration. But the false self is a lie; the whole plan is built on pretense. It's a deadly trap. God loves us too much to leave us there. So he thwarts us, in many, many different ways. (p. 107-8 in Wild at Heart).
out of the goodness of your love, deliver me.
For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.
--King David, Psalm 109:21
Am I really a man? Have I got what it takes...when it counts? Most men live their lives haunted by that question, or crippled by the answer they've been given.
--John Eldredge, Wild at Heart
When I was a boy I didn't get to spend as much time with my dad as I would have liked. He was a farmer and worked hard to take care of our family, often from dawn till dusk. One effect this had on me was that I started to believe I was less important to dad than the farm work or his other responsibilities (he served on supervisory boards for several organizations). Now I always knew dad loved me, there was never a question of that. But the subtle lie crept into my psyche anyway. It wasn't until many years later when I read Wild at Heart and spent time in prayer and self reflection that I realized dad's "absence" represented a wound to my young heart that carried over into adulthood, manifested as a form of diminishment, aka inferiority complex or low self esteem.
It is amazing how the wounds of our youth shape our personality in very significant ways, and how unaware we can be of it...consciously at least. Feeling inferior really hindered me from trying many things for fear of failing (for example, I didn't like...no, I hated competitive sports). To me, the answer to the question "Am I really a man?" was something like: "Well, probably...but not nearly as good as most". One classic mistake I made was to take my question to the woman. Somehow I felt that if a woman noticed me or felt that I was special, well then I must be special! One problem with that was I was so shy that most women didn't notice me. But if they did and we became friends, my sense of worth seemed to be based on what they thought of me at any given time, kind of like they were my report card. And if they decided they weren't interested anymore, I was devastated.
Although some wounds are more evident or traumatic than others, everyone has taken them (for example, my father's 'absence'). And each wound comes with a message (for me it was "I am not that important"), and from that place we take a vow (my vow was "I accept that I am inferior...it is just the way it is") and choose a way of life that is dysfunctional in order to diminish the pain (I avoided competition, withdrew from many social engagements to avoid feeling inferior to others, especially those who were the "life of the party"). Eldredge calls this way of living (or rather, surviving) the "false self". We don't live out of a center, and we often aren't aware of the root cause.
Fortunately God loves us enough to not leave us in that place if we want freedom and healing. But the process may be painful. We have to come to the end of our own efforts of "making life work" and reach out to him. I came to the end of myself about 10 years ago (more on that in a future post!). Through some of the process I felt almost like I couldn't bear the emotional pain though, almost as though I was self destructing. Eldredge in Wild at Heart calls this process the failing, or shattering of the "false self". An entertaining taste of how I felt is on the YouTube clip below (click on picture below to view, or http://youtu.be/8M7mM_iHd9I). It is a scene from Star Trek III of the destruction of the beloved USS Enterprise. To make a long story short, Captain Kirk self destructs the ship in order to save his and the lives of his officers (in Dr. McCoy's words, Kirk used death to give them a fighting chance to live). A fitting analogy.
 |
I dearly love my dad and I know he loves me. This post isn't about my dad's failures because Lord knows I wasn't the perfect parent to my beautiful daughter either. Dad did more right than he ever did wrong. I share this with you because it is a part of my journey where I suffered and God clearly rescued me, and some of you may relate to it in some way.
Click "Read more" below for a brief excerpt from Wild at Heart (John Eldredge) about the concept of the "False Self":
The Imposter
From the place of our woundedness we construct a false self. We find a
few gifts that work for us, and we try to live off them. Stuart found he
was good at math and science. He shut down his heart and spent all his
energies perfecting his "Spock" persona. There, in the academy, he was
safe; he was also recognized and rewarded. "When I was eight," confesses
Brennan Manning, "the impostor, or false self, was born as a defense
against pain. The impostor within whispered, 'Brennan, don't ever be
your real self anymore because nobody likes you as you are. Invent a new
self that everybody will admire and nobody will know.'" Notice the key
phrase: "as a defense against pain," as a way of saving himself. The
impostor is our plan for salvation.So God must take it all away. He thwarts our plan for salvation; he shatters the false self. Our plan for redemption is hard to let go of; it clings to our hearts like an octopus.
Why would God do something so terrible as to wound us in the place of our deepest wound? Jesus warned us that "whoever wants to save his life will lose it" (Luke 9:24). Christ is not using the word bios here; he's not talking about our physical life. The passage is not about trying to save your skin by ducking martyrdom or something like that. The word Christ uses for "life" is the word psyche-the word for our soul, our inner self, our heart. He says that the things we do to save our psyche, our self, those plans to save and protect our inner life-those are the things that will actually destroy us. "There is a way that seems right to a man but in the end it leads to death," says Proverbs 16:25. The false self, our plan for redemption, seems so right to us. It shields us from pain and secures us a little love and admiration. But the false self is a lie; the whole plan is built on pretense. It's a deadly trap. God loves us too much to leave us there. So he thwarts us, in many, many different ways. (p. 107-8 in Wild at Heart).
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