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"Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."
(James 4:7)
When I saw "Be Real With Yourself" as the theme for Tuesday at camp, I got nervous. I could already see how our small group time was going to go. I knew that some of the girls in my group were not from Christian backgrounds and only a few of them were actively walking with the Lord. I could see this topic so easily shifting toward, "God made me this way, so you need to accept it, and I will not change." I knew that I wanted to keep the conversation on Jesus and didn't want to get lost in the weeds of what is being taught in our cultural moment about the topic of "self" and "identity".
Our culture is constantly pushing the idea of "being you", "living your truth", and "embracing the real you". Being the "authentic you" is a piece of encouragement that I was given when I was a child, but the same statement has a very different meaning today. When I was young, being the "authentic you" was a reminder to not try and change yourself to fit in with others or try to be something you are not for the approval of other people. Today, however, when people discuss being their "true selves", it means embracing every single thing about yourself, including the negative, hurtful and sinful things, and making them your very identity. This is not what I mean when I say that we ought to "Be Real with Ourselves".
Being real with ourselves doesn't mean that we embrace sin and make it our whole personality. Being real involves recognizing our own limitations, shortcomings, and sin so that we can cry out to the Lord for help. Being real is admitting that you're not perfect and you're not "all that". Being real recognizes your need for a savior. Furthermore, being real with ourselves also involves believing and embracing the things that God says about you.
When I think of "being your most true self", I think of being exactly who God designed you to be. My human experience and the Word of God has taught me that my flesh is in opposition to what God wants for me, and only through the grace of God and the Holy Spirit in me can I follow the Lord in my life. Now, through the Holy Spirit, to be who God made me to be, we are invited and commanded to "submit [ourselves], then, to God" as today's verse says.
Much to my surprise, our small group had a lovely conversation that night focusing around identity. We discussed how, although you may identify yourself with your family, friends, jobs, hobbies, interests, talents, etc., all of these things are temporary and could be taken away from you at any moment. What then? Would you completely lose yourself if these things were taken away? If you find your identity in anything other than the Lord, you are placing your identity in something that is unfixed, unstable, and temporary. But when we submit ourselves and our identities to the Lord, we will actually find ourselves and our true identity as children of God.
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