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Jesus is our greatest gift and our greatest example. He is our Savior and our Teacher. Practicing the Practices is a learning and experiential podcast geared towards helping you along on your Spiritual Formation journey.
Each episode will introduce you to a Discipleship Practice and provide a tutorial of sorts to show you how to practice the Way of Jesus in your everyday life.
While this is a local church podcast, we have geared and shaped it for a broad audience. Were hopeful that they are beneficial to followers of Jesus everywhere.
To learn more about Brad, Casey, or Fellowship West, visit www.FellowshipWest.org
Welcome to Practicing the Practices. This podcast is all about the journey and process of becoming a disciple of Jesus. Our mission is to curate both a learning and experiential encounter with Jesus. We believe Jesus is our savior and our teacher, our greatest gift, and our greatest example. So here at Practicing the Practices, Practices, we not only learn about the way of Jesus, but learn to practice the way of Jesus in our everyday lives.
Speaker 1:Well, Casey, we are in episode five now of Discipleship in the Wilderness. One of the things we've been saying throughout all of our conversations is the wilderness is not the place where God abandons us, it's the place where he does some of his deepest formative work. But one of the ways he does that formative work is he often uses the desert space, the wilderness, liminal space, however we wanna frame these dark night of the soul, as a way of exposing certain things in us that might be holding us back, that might be harming us, that are not part of our true selves. And one of the categories of exposure that we want to take a few moments to really address, Because not only is it something that you and I have to deal with, I think we... One of the things that we've experienced in pastoral ministry, this is something every follower of Jesus has to reckon with, and that is the trap of the false self.
Speaker 1:The wilderness exposes the false self. And for all the people watching or listening, they're like, what does that even mean? Unpack us a little bit a little bit about what we're talking about with the false self.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the true self and the false self is a framework that Thomas Merton created. He was a Trappist monk. He came up with this idea of the true self and the false self. And the false self is the superficial ego driven identity we construct to fit into the world, to seek validation, protect ourselves, and appear worthy.
Speaker 2:On the other hand, the true self, I like to think of as the Imago Dei, the idea that we are all made in the image of God. So it's our authentic. It's our our sacred identity that's hidden in God characterized by unconditional love, inner freedom, and interconnectedness. So here's what Merton has to say as he wrote about this. All sin starts from the assumption that my false self is the fundamental reality of life to which everything else in the universe is ordered.
Speaker 2:Thus, I use up my life in the desire for pleasure, the thirst for experiences, for power, honor, knowledge, and love to clothe this false self and construct its nothingness into something objectively real. So he's connecting sin to basically living out of our false self Yeah. As opposed to living out of our true self. And really, in every moment in every day, we can choose how we're gonna show up. Am I gonna show...
Speaker 2:Because they're both there for us
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:To access at any time. Am I gonna show up and make choices and live my life as my true self today, my imago dei, my made in the image of God Casey that has a... That has freedom, that has an identity in Christ that can't be taken away regardless of my performance, or am I gonna show up and perform and put on masks that I think people... That that basically show what I think people want from me and what I think will get me love and acceptance?
Speaker 1:Yeah. One one of the ways we see... What what he... Thomas has done is he has put... You see, I called him by his first name.
Speaker 1:That's how close we are. One of the ways in which we see this dynamic in scripture is all the way back in Genesis two and three. So Genesis one and two, everything is beautiful. Everything is in harmony. Sin enters the world in Genesis three, and and the first two things Adam and Eve do is they hide, and then they try to clothe themselves.
Speaker 1:They've got these fig leaves, And they they feel shame for the first time. That's that's an interesting concept just to meditate on. Hey, there was a time when God's people did not have the experience of any shame. But now they've experienced it, and what the thing they wanna do is they wanna cover that up. They wanna clothe it.
Speaker 1:And one of the things that authors and writers, true self, false self would say is much of what it means to live from the outflow and be driven by our sin nature, the fracture, the fall, is that we are constantly trying to mask, cover up all of this sin and shame. And of course, the the true self is introduced when Jesus goes looking for Adam and Eve. There's this... It's it's almost... It's comedy.
Speaker 1:It's a little bit of satire in Genesis. I don't know that people can maybe necessarily know to read some of Genesis three in like a poetic satire framework, but it's what it is. When when when God says, Adam, where are you? God has not lost Adam. Yeah.
Speaker 1:The question is for Adam. He's trying to get Adam to reckon, hey, what's going on? What are you doing? What what is this that you're wearing? Why are you...
Speaker 1:Why have you covered yourself in this false self, this fig leaf? And of course, there's consequences that come with that. Well, the end of it though is a foreshadowing of redemption, and God says, this this covering that you have is not good enough. I'm gonna actually cover you. And it's a foreshadowing of atonement and a picture of I'm I'm gonna clothe you, I'm gonna give you something much better.
Speaker 1:Fast forward to the New Testament. Paul in Ephesians is describing this reality. There's this recognition of our brokenness and sin, but grace that enters our life. And by faith, we we reconnect with our heavenly Father. And in Ephesians two ten, a lot of people are familiar with Ephesians two:eight-nine, it's not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to His grace and mercy that He saved us.
Speaker 1:Well, verse 10 introduces us to this idea of our true self. It builds on the imago Dei, and Paul writes that we are the workmanship of Christ. The Greek word there is poema, the idea that not only has Casey been created in the image of God with dignity, value, and worth, but that God has uniquely shaped her. You... The...
Speaker 1:Another literal rendering of that passage is you are his masterpiece. You are his work of art. There are things in your personality, in in your... In the shaping of your desires and gifts that have been uniquely crafted in you that that God wants you to display, but oftentimes we we allow those things to shrink and allow this false self. We don't know how to tap into that.
Speaker 1:So what we're what we're really wanna talk about for a few moments is here's how the wilderness exposes the areas where we're living from our false self, and what we want to encourage our listeners to do is to tap in to the truer, it's not that they have to become or achieve their true self, It's we wanna help them find ways to remove the fig leaves and just live in the true self that they've already been created to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I love what you were saying, the correlation you were making with the fig leaves and then the covering that God provides. So I think we could think... As we're thinking of true self, false self, there's a lot of ways to think about it, but those fig leaves is our false self. The way we try to cover up our flaws and our faults and our struggles, and then our true self is basically covered in Christ, covered in the sacrifice of Christ.
Speaker 2:And that's how we're able to live in freedom and let our true self show is that it's the sacrifice of Christ that covers our sin. We don't have to attempt... And when we make attempts to cover our own Mhmm. Sin up, it gets so much messier. And I mean, a fig leaf would be an incredibly uncomfortable garment.
Speaker 2:They're like... I don't know. I think I've I've not... I don't know that I've ever actually encountered a fig leaf, but I've read that they're like really like pokey and rough and uncomfortable and
Speaker 1:Well, the the literal, you know, scripture story is also trying to communicate some metaphorical meaning. Whatever we try to create to cover ourselves is gonna be significantly deficient and inferior to what God has for us. But there is something in our insecurity, there's something in our depravity, however you wanna frame that, that we often try to cover ourselves. And the Wilderness helps us realize, I don't need to. God has provide covering.
Speaker 1:Let me live in His covering. Yeah. So what are maybe some examples when people hear like, what are you talking about false self? Let's let's let's drill down a little bit more specific Yeah. Kind of every day.
Speaker 1:What are some ways that the false self gets revealed, and then what's the counter true self that we want people to see?
Speaker 2:So these are... This is a list of a few things we might notice. Yeah. And we'll have this in the show notes, and it'd be a really great exercise
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:To go through this and really, like, meditate on these and circle the places that you find these Yeah. Showing up in your life. So the false self is shaped by appearances, who you think others want you to be, whereas the true self is anchored in divine identity, who you are in God's presence. The false self is always shifting to fit the moment. The true self is unchanging and eternal.
Speaker 2:The false self is driven by the need to prove, defend, achieve, and the true self rests in calm assurance. I think that's so so telling to us when we find ourselves wanting to defend something and
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Wanting to show up and be defensive. It's like that's a good check engine light, a good indicator light. Like, oh
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow. When I'm working so hard to defend myself or defend something, there's probably some insecurity there, and insecurity is the fruit of the false self. The false self is always craving more, never feeling like enough. That's one that I personally wrestle with a lot. And the true self is at peace with what is.
Speaker 2:The false self is obsessed with looking successful or worthy, and the true self moves with authenticity. Couple more. The false self creates conflict through ego and fear, but the true self draws people together in wholeness. If we're operating out of our false self, there is no space to Yeah. Embrace other people because we...
Speaker 2:Again, we're coming from an insecure place.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And so we wanna make sure that other... We we notice and point out the flaws in other people as opposed to celebrating other people. Yeah. The false self reacts from insecurity and worry. The true self acts from an inner courage.
Speaker 2:And then finally, the false self demands effort and control. So there's a lot of striving. It's a lot of work when you're living out of your false self, whereas the true self offers liberation. So those... That's not an exhaustive list by any means, but it's just some things to think, am I living out of...
Speaker 2:Is the way I'm living right now, is it demanding a lot of striving and effort and control for me? It's not that it's just gonna be easy, breezy, lemon squeezy if you're living from your true self, but, like, if you're constantly striving to keep up appearances, that's a really good sign that you're living from your false self.
Speaker 1:Here... Here's some examples of just recently the way I've kind of observed it in other people and in my own life. Recently, I was around a woman who had just finished working out the yard, was sweaty, and needed to go pick up her kid from practice. Mhmm. And this is a suburban kind of community, and the immediate impulse was, I can't go pick up my kid look liking this.
Speaker 1:All the other women are gonna be dolled up. Right? The idea that even just like there's some sort of assumption of the way I need to show up to pick up my kid from practice to show that, hey, I'm on the same plane as you. There's just like what's going on in there? Deep down, there's something that says, I need these people to see me a certain way.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:A man I had conversations recently with was doesn't wanna be perceived a certain way by his coworkers. And so there's this particular activity he hates, he doesn't wanna participate in, but in his mind, this is what it means. There's an insecurity there. Some ways it shows up in me, you you sort of mentioned it is I want to be seen as competent. I wanna be seen as smart, thoughtful, and wise.
Speaker 1:And there'll be times when people ask me a question and they're looking for insight. In the back of my mind, I'm like, man, I'm not sure. I don't know. There's oftentimes this little temptation that instead of just saying, and I have no idea, you're gonna have to find somebody else. I wanna try to provide...
Speaker 1:Wanna try to come up with an answer. There's this little hole inside of me. There's a... And so there's a there's a dozen other ways this manifests itself. But instead of me being totally secure in Jesus, totally secure in the truth that I was actually never meant to know everything.
Speaker 1:I want to be seen as the person who does. And this this has a way of kind of showing up in our lives, and it actually holds us back from experiencing true freedom in Jesus.
Speaker 2:So why do you think it is specifically that the wilderness exposes our false self?
Speaker 1:The wilderness... Here's the thing. We can actually operate of our... Out of our false self successfully, at least from external appearances. And the wilderness has a way of stripping away the ability to do that.
Speaker 1:So if you are walking through deep loss and pain, sometimes the wilderness can bring such pain that no longer can you pretend that everything's okay. And you have to admit, I I can't fix this.
Speaker 2:Well, and it takes a ton of energy to maintain your false self.
Speaker 1:Oh, it does. To keep that...
Speaker 2:The the mask you're wearing is heavy to carry around. And so if you've come to the end of yourself in in any way, shape, or form, the energy it takes to maintain your false self is probably just not sustainable when you are at the end of your rope or you, you know, your energy needs to go to just surviving whatever it is Yeah. That you're going through.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you... The the desert, the the dryness of it, will oftentimes make us desperate enough. Right? So, you know, one of the most familiar parables in the New Testament is the parable of the lost son, the prodigal son.
Speaker 1:And he's like, hey, what caused him to recognize this false self is not working? Well, he lost everything and that actually wasn't it. It's when he realized, I'm okay eating this offensive food that's disgusting. He's like, What am I doing? He kind of had to come to the end of himself.
Speaker 1:That's what oftentimes the Wilderness does. It actually brings us to the end of ourselves. When we are not in that space, we can just kind of fake it. We can draw on it, but it strips those things away oftentimes leaves us bare. And that feels terrible in the moment.
Speaker 1:The irony is though, it's oftentimes the really good thing. It's like the stubborn man who will not go to the doctor. Wife's friends are like, Man, you gotta go to the doctor. And one day he wakes up and he just can't move. And he finally goes to the doctor and the doctor reveals, Hey, there's this condition.
Speaker 1:He's gonna actually have to take the scalpel out, do surgery to remove it. It's terrible. It's fearful. It's frightening. But it actually leads to freedom.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. And that that's what the desert, the wilderness often does.
Speaker 2:I love what Alice Freiling has to say about the false self. The false self is the person we wish we were. It is the person we want others to think we are. It is the person who lives with the illusion that we are able to love perfectly, to be wise and all knowing, and to be in control of life. The false self thrives on success and achievement.
Speaker 2:The false the false self is indeed a very impressive person. The problem is that the false self is a facade, not the unique person God created us to be. The person God created us to be flourishes. The false self languishes in pretense and in grasping for abilities and gifts that are not ours to have. So...
Speaker 2:And I mean, I just... Even reading all this, it's like, oh, this is exhausting. You know that feeling when you're, like, doomscrolling on your phone Mhmm. And your brain tells you, I should put my phone away. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:This isn't good. This is this is exhausting my brain, and, like, there's still some impulse to keep doing it.
Speaker 1:Keep doing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I keep doing it anyway. Mhmm. And then afterwards, I'm like, That was exhausting. I feel terrible.
Speaker 2:And I think that's kind of what it's like living in the false self. It's like, man, I don't wanna keep doing this. This is exhausting. I don't wanna really have to keep this, maintain this level of control over everything, but I don't know how to let it go. And so Yeah.
Speaker 2:We get forced into We get forced into it in the...
Speaker 1:We'd like to say you're always being formed. Mhmm. So here's an example of how false self formation happens. Researchers will have done some studies on kindergarteners and how they test in the realm of creativity. And they've done this with groups of kindergarteners that they've tracked from kindergarten all the way through high school graduation, and they'll evaluate that nearly 90 of kindergartners test as creative.
Speaker 1:They've come up with imaginative stories, they paint, they draw, The way they play on the playground is creative. By the time they graduate high school, less than 15% will sometimes test as creative. And it's like... And so the explanation of what's happening there is is society begins to press in and say, be normal, be normal, be normal. And what a kid very subtly learns to do is not be who they are, to fit the mold, you know, to whatever a young teenage boy or teenage girl is supposed to be like, and pretty soon it strips away some of that.
Speaker 1:I I don't think we're oftentimes aware conscientiously conscientiously that the reason we're operating out of the way we're at is all these other forces have deformed us into this way, and what the Wilderness is actually inviting us do is to have that kind of ripped from us and to be reformed in a new way of being. It's powerful, but we have to actually sometimes recognize, oh, society, culture, family of origin, internal pressure is actually shaping who I am. There's gotta be a much better way to be shaped. And that's that's what we want. Hey, there...
Speaker 1:The wilderness re brings us to God and says, okay, now now you're here. Let me shape you. Let me reveal who you actually are.
Speaker 2:And as you're talking, I'm thinking, I wonder if there's... Obviously, the scripture tells us so much about who our true self is. But as we're looking for our own unique true self and kinda trying to figure out, well, what is this work of art that God's created me to be? Maybe one of the keys is in remembering what we were like as children.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And like, who were you before the world told you you can't be that anymore and you listened. You know? And I mean, I think it's so interesting how the scripture even talks about children and the childlike faith it requires to to come to God in the way that Jesus blessed children. And I wonder if part of reconnecting with our true self is just kinda going like, what did you make me like when I was a child? Before before I started putting on masks, what was there?
Speaker 2:I think that would be really an interesting exercise.
Speaker 1:I think so. I think it'd be really, really.
Speaker 2:Alright. So here's some questions to consider. That that could be one is what was I like as a child? What brought me joy? What delighted me as a child could be a really interesting thing to think about in this conversation.
Speaker 2:You had something that you shared about showing up too big or too small in the room with me that thought was really interesting.
Speaker 1:So so maybe here's another way to think about true self, false self. This comes from family systems theory. I would really encourage people to read Steve Cuss' book, Managing Leadership Anxiety. Super helpful for me. Steve is a counselor.
Speaker 1:Now he does a lot of consulting. But he talks about this idea of, hey, when we show up into a room, when we show up at family dinner, when we show up into the classroom at school, when we show up into the office, when we show up at church, wherever it might be, what kind of presence do we bring into that space? What what size are we? Do we show up too big? In other words, we're dominating conversations.
Speaker 1:We've gotta be in charge. Everybody needs to hear our idea. Oh, we really gotta find ways to kind of manipulate and move this. We're just so big because we are so fearful of being out of control. He would say we encroach into God's space because we get too big.
Speaker 1:But others of us actually don't show up into spaces that way. We show up too small, and we don't bring the fullness of our voice. We actually do have good ideas, insights, thoughts, disagreements, whatever it may be, but we've been conditioned through insecurity or being shut down in the past to not bring that, so we shrink back. And so one of the things they would argue is learning to live in your true self is to be right sized, is to not bow up and get too big and try to everybody see me, hear me, because we feel like we need to control the thing, but also not to shrink back and not bring the fullness of who you are, to not allow... We we have a really good friend.
Speaker 1:I won't mention his name, but he's he's wise. He's been very successful. And recently he tells... He told a story of finding himself in a room with people who from a financial or platform, kind of standard, maybe are more, you know, bigger names or whatever. And he's in a circle with these people and they're sharing these ideas, and he's he's not saying anything.
Speaker 1:He's not bringing... He's not really in the moment. And the group facilitator, like, put him aside, why aren't you showing up? But despite how successful he's been over here in this realm and what he has to offer in this circle, he he he shrunk back. So many of us are tempted to not bring our full selves or were tempted to bring their selves.
Speaker 1:What does it look like to enter in as right sized people, not driven by the anxiety of what's going on, but securing Jesus, this is who He made me to be. I'm gonna offer who He's made me to be, but I'm not offering and controlled by the fear of how are people gonna react to it. I know who I am in Jesus. I know who He shaped in me. Actually, I can offer this to you, Casey.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And what you do with it doesn't have to impact me.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's so good. Some other questions to consider would be where in your life right now are you performing instead of living? Showing up as you think you're supposed to be rather than who you actually are. Another question, what does your false self need people to believe about you and what would it cost to let that image go?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. Just like, what is it that I really wanna project to people? I was sharing with you yesterday that I I was interacting with someone in a in a group setting also, and we had affirmed this person, and then it came out that they were mad because even though so many beautiful affirmations had been sent their way, they wanted to be seen as something else, and that was their construct. They wanted to be seen this way, and it just frustrated them so much that people didn't see them that way. And so that's just so good to notice.
Speaker 2:How do I want people to see me? Yeah. And why? Why do I want them to see me that way? What do I think would really happen if everybody saw me as this?
Speaker 2:So the good things to dig into. And finally, where have you mistaken achievement, appearance, or approval for identity? Treating a result as proof of who you are. Even if we... Even if something is great, like even if something great happens, like we get a great result
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Still harms us to base our identity off of that.
Speaker 1:An interview in Rolling Stones or Vanity Fear comes to mind. It's with Anthony Hopkins. It's years ago. And the interviewer said, I mean, here he is, ever how many Academy Awards he's won, famous movie star. He said, hey, what advice would you give to a young you or young actor or actress on her way up?
Speaker 1:And Anthony Hopkins answer was so surprising. It it kind of threw the interviewer off. He said, oh, I would tell him it's all a lie. And the interviewer is like, what do you mean you would tell him it's all a lie? He said, oh, we've all been told when you reach the mountaintop, and you're in the blockbuster film, and you win the Academy Award, and you're celebrated as the best in whatever it is you're doing, that you will finally feel complete, satisfied, whole.
Speaker 1:That you will... That arriving will do for you what you think it'll do for you. And it's all a lie. It doesn't. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:That was so... It was just interesting to actually see the interviewer shot, but actually he's really onto something. Right? You... I've seen it so many times.
Speaker 1:You know, I've got a daughter who plays sports, and it's in that kind of recruiting dynamic. And you've got one kid who's been recruited to play in the SEC at her dream school, and one kid who's not committed anywhere yet. And both of them are struggling because one is trying to prove that they belong where they've been committed to, and the other is trying to prove that they can be committed to. The carrot, you know, is just never answered. And so one of the things I think we want people to know is one of the beautiful things about the Wilderness, one of the gifts.
Speaker 1:So all this is hard, all this is hard, and then all of a sudden, you know, what would it look like then? I think of David in Psalm 63 saying, what I've actually discovered, though in this dry and weary land, is your love is better than life. David doesn't say your love helps me face death and hardship, though that's true. He actually says your love is better than success. Your love is better than vindication.
Speaker 1:Your love is better than this situation getting resolved. Like I have found satisfaction in relationship and connection to who you are. That's the real gift of the Wilderness is not just that it strips us away and exposes this, but it's in the Wilderness we find the better way.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:That the true self is actually what we were intended to be. And when we wear it, it's like, oh, this is what security feels like.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:This is what love feels like. This is what attachment feels like. And it can be a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Because that love of God is really of all of the things we've mentioned, achievement Yeah. Beauty in appearance, giftedness, people's impression of you, of all those things, really the love of God and the security we find there is the only thing that can't be taken. Even if we put our, you know, our identity in things like our spouse or our kids, even though those are great things.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The only thing that really lasts is being a beloved child of God, and it and it... There's no fear there. There's no anxiety there because it just can't be taken away.
Speaker 1:It's interesting that the thing we long for most, the thing we need most is something we already have. We just need to kind of turn to it. Yeah. If you think about, again, right before Jesus goes in the wilderness, there's his baptism, and the heavens open, and we see this kind of divine revelation. This is my beloved son.
Speaker 1:Think about the timestamp. Jesus has preached no miracles. He's, excuse me, he's performed no miracles. He's preached no sermons. This is before any of the ministry has been done.
Speaker 1:There's been no, you know, crucifixion, resurrection. This is at the beginning. Before Jesus has performed in any way, this is my beloved son. And it's out of that reality that we then preach and serve and minister and love, not to acquire it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Alright. What practices can form us here in our quest to unmask the the false self and really lean into our true imago Dei, our true God given self? Confession. Yes.
Speaker 2:Confession is a great practice. We did a whole episode on it, maybe multiple actually. Yeah.
Speaker 1:We've talked about it a lot.
Speaker 2:How it's a it's a practice that we don't engage in very much, but it can be incredibly healing because I'm just... I'm sharing my false self with you, and I'm unmasking it because I'm telling you about it. And that mask doesn't seem so shiny anymore once I start to be honest. Yeah. Confession is a great practice.
Speaker 2:Spiritual friendship, having these people in your life that you can confess to. Mhmm. Having people in your life that really know you, not the shiny shellacked, masked version of you, but you. Exam and practice. So this is just one of the ways that we can actually really notice what's actually happening in our days and the highs and lows, and we have a recorded exam and practice we'll link here that you could do every day.
Speaker 2:It's just a way of noticing what were the big feelings and thoughts and movements of my soul throughout this day, and what does that tell me about what I'm valuing, where I'm finding my identity.
Speaker 1:That's good.
Speaker 2:And then detachment. Detachment is a spiritual practice that sometimes we, or indifference is another way we could say that. It sounds negative because the world thinks differently about the word detachment or indifference than what we're talking about here. So detachment is letting go of what keeps us from being fully given to God. So if I'm gripping tightly to this, then I'm not gonna have an open hand to grip tightly to God.
Speaker 2:So I'm letting go of this so I can grip tightly over here. That's detachment. And just those are a few of the practices that I think could be really helpful as we navigate letting go and allowing our false self to be unmasked.
Speaker 1:I had a friend recently say to me, I love this about you. And they described not in any sort of like condemning way, a weakness I have, a flaw I have, you know, an eccentricity or whatever. And it was interesting that the thing that I would want to kind of like find a way to mask stuff, they were drawn to. And it was a really kind of powerful moment to be like, oh, actually, you've embraced me in my humanity. I think there's something powerful when we can just admit, hey, this is this is who we are.
Speaker 1:This is who I'm not. Have people who will love us and see us in that and be like, that's great. I'm totally comfortable with that. It's it as a way of really helping us shed shed weight. I think about if you've ever done training with weight vests or ankle weights, and you take them off, like that you feel so free.
Speaker 1:You feel so fast. Shedding the false self has a way of doing that to our soul. It's like, oh, detaching from these things has brought new life and new freedom. It's reduced anxiety, and the better thing, maybe the most powerful thing is is when we have learned to receive God's love and be the beloved, we actually can love so much more deeply, so much more freely that we become a greater vision of light and salt to those around us.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The only way we're gonna really love people well is from our true self. Yeah. We can fake it. Our false self can fake it, but our true self is where we're gonna actually love people with the love of Jesus.
Speaker 2:So I'm gonna close us today with a prayer called loosen my grip, and it's written by Ted Lauder. And as we read it together, it's just a reminder that our our false self is gripping tightly. It's gripping tightly to what we think is good. It's gripping tightly to what's not good for us. And part of releasing into our into our true self is to just open our hands and loosen our grip a little bit.
Speaker 2:So close your eyes with me if you're able and allow these words to sink into your soul. Oh god, it is hard for me to let go most times. And the squeeze I exert garbles me and gnarls others. So loosen my grip a bit on the good times, on the moments of sunlight and starshine and joy that the thousand graces they scatter as they pass may nurture growth in me rather than turn into brittle memories. Loosen my grip on those grudges and grievances I hold so closely that I may risk exposing myself to the spirit of forgiving and forgiveness that changes things and resurrects dreams and courage.
Speaker 2:Loosen my grip on my fears that I may be released a little into humility and into an acceptance of my humanity. Loosen my grip on myself that I may experience the freedom of a fool who knows that to believe is to see kingdoms find power, sense glory, and to reach out is to know myself held. To laugh at myself is to be in on the joke of your grace. To attend to each moment is to hear the faint melody of eternity. To dare love is to smell the wildflowers of heaven.
Speaker 2:Loosen my grip on my ways and my words, on my fears and fretfulness, that letting go into the depths of silence and my own uncharted longings, I may find myself held by you and linked anew to all life in this wild and wondrous world you love so much so I may take heart that you have taken me to heart. Amen.
Speaker 1:For those watching and listening, you are the beloved, and we would want them to live in that freedom. Casey, thanks for another great conversation about discipleship in the wilderness. Hey, make sure if you're watching or listening to check out the show notes for resources to help on this, and we'll see you next time on Practicing the Practices.
Speaker 2:See you then.