There is a painful panic that has characterized my self-discovery, or my attempt at such. As I accumulate evidences of who I am truly through careful examination, I find that each piece of evidence causes more confusion than clarity… more questions than answers. I have begun to wonder if I will ever know who I am and if I can move forward if I, indeed, never know.
However, in recent weeks, I have discovered a peace in the midst of my panic. I have peeked at a life that dares to stop flailing about in the disarray of the unknown, dares to stop, if even for a moment, examining everything I do, everything I think, everything that I am. I have dared to break, for just those moments, from this deeply engrained habit. Its absence is foreign to me, so to stop it has never seemed like an option; because this peace and the accompanying absence of pain is extremely appealing, though, it seems to be a habit that demands breaking.
Thus, I set out to do just that, and in doing so I recall that in all of my years of habit-breaking, one tactic has proven the most effective: replacement. In this particular case, replacement will involve filling my mind with things other than examination and will thus remove the opportunity for it altogether. When I initiate this, as a Christian, I am inclined to let those “things other than” be God. I will discover Him instead of myself.
But Socrates should enter this discussion, even though he complicates things a bit further. He is known to have said that “the unexamined life is not worth living,” and I am known to have agreed with him wholeheartedly. So if I am to be consistent with what I have claimed in the past, and if I am to remain one of Socrates’ biggest supporters in this assertion, then I would consider a life free of self-examination simply not worth living, or, at least, not at all satisfying.
So now I consider what I am left with: a life void of self-examination, full of God and not worth living? Something is wrong here. My faith again prompts me to wonder, should not the presence of God, and certainly a fullness of God in my life, necessarily imply worth? And it is in this logic that I am led to question Socrates’ definition of and criteria for a life worth living (Not to question its truth as applied to his own life but the appropriateness of its application to mine, for the criteria of “a life worth living” is, as I’m sure you’d all agree, a subjective, debatable notion). I wonder if it is not examination that is essential to a life worth living, but rather the presence of God. The reason that I am not convinced that self-examination is essential is that I believe that a foremost commitment to God is, and I have found that it is difficult for the two to coexist.
I have claimed in the past that in the same way that some people love to study and marvel at science or philosophy or economics, I love to study and marvel at the human heart and the human mind. In the practice of this, I use the heart and mind that I know best: my own. Now, if the study of and passion for self is comparable to that of the other disciplines, such as science, philosophy or economics, there would not seem to be tension between the existence of a passion for both self and God. After all, many Christians are passionate about both God and one or more of the disciplines, and these passions have constituted vocations.
But I have also seen that tension can arise here when one’s study of or passion for vocation surpasses that of or for God. You see, the study of and passion for one’s vocation are not intrinsically bad, few would argue that they are, but rather, they carry the possibility of and temptation to idolatry. Otherwise said, it is not bad to love one’s work, but it is bad to love it more than one loves God. With regards to self-examination, because we, by nature, are self-centered and self-involved, it is very easy for us to fall into the idolatry of self, of self-discovery, self-understanding, and self-development and to, perhaps unknowingly, begin worshipping the creation instead of the Creator.
Last fall I was struggling with vanity. I was an 18-year-old girl who couldn’t leave the room unless her clothes, hair and make-up were perfect. I had fallen into idolatry and bondage to my appearance. And so, to overcome this, I had to take drastic measures. I decided that I would not do my hair or wear even the slightest bit of makeup. I went to Salvation Army and bought sweaters that were enormous and ugly. On more than one occasion I left my dorm room feeling completely and painfully uncomfortable with the way I looked, so that I could learn how not to care. I needed to learn that my appearance determines neither my character nor my attitude, and once I felt sure that I had learned this, I began reintroducing myself to appropriate sizes, blow-dryers, and mascara in healthy, relevant and God-honoring ways.
I think that a similar course of action is appropriate in the case of self-examination. For a time, I will forget myself completely, and once I have learned to be satisfied in Christ, dying to and mindless of myself, realizing that I am not essential to a life worth living, I will slowly reintroduce myself back into my life in healthy and relevant ways.
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Perhaps there is a measure of truth in this, but I would like to add two qualifiers: The unexamined life is not worth living so long as the resulting examined life does not prohibit or compromise the life which examines God, and so long as the results of life’s examination do not inform one’s morals, convictions or decisions; that job is left to God alone.
And finally, I am left to resolve one more concern—that of emerging post-drastic-measures with a well-developed view of God but with little sense of self. Surely obliviousness to ourselves is not Scriptural either. However, Scripture addresses this concern beautifully. In 1 Kings 3, we find Solomon interacting with God. God tells Solomon to ask for anything he wants. Seemingly without hesitation, Solomon asks God for “a discerning heart to govern [His] people.” God is pleased with this request and responds in this way: “Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for—both riches and honor.”
We see here that if we seek God, a life that is in Him and the accomplishment of His work, He will bless us not only in revealing Himself to us but also in that for which we have not asked. I believe with all of my unknown heart that if we seek God and God alone, He will also bless us in revealing ourselves to us and that in Him we will find who we are in the truest sense.
