Rethink Your Self: A 5-Day PlanPrøve

Our Unavoidable Flaw

When you start a journey of improving yourself—through an exercise regimen, a plan for healthier eating, or going to a counselor to work through various issues—you need an accurate assessment of your present state before you can move forward. If you decide you want to run a full marathon, you’ll first need to grapple with the reality that you can hardly run a 5K without passing out (or throwing up!).

The same is true here. In order to rethink yourself, you need a better look at your current state. What kind of self are you? The commonsense approach says, “It’s time to look inside and find out.” But when you look up to God before looking inside, you admit the need for an assessment that comes from outside of yourself.  The Bible’s assessment of our natural state is that we are bent in a particular direction. We are drawn toward independence, not dependence on God. Our selves naturally turn inward, like an ingrown toenail pointed in the wrong direction, causing discomfort.

This selfish impulse that turns us inward, away from God, is what the Bible calls sin. Sin manifests itself as a power, a condition, and in our personal choices. 

Altered Design

Sin leads us to resist or reject God’s design for us. Like children who don’t want to be told what to do by their parents, we want to choose our own path, to make our own way, to create our own reality. We want to be responsible for designing our lives, not conforming to a design that comes from outside ourselves.

The Bible says human beings are special because we are made in God’s image and are designed to reflect his glory. But we say we are special because we have a glory all our own, a spark of uniqueness and creativity deep inside that needs to be unearthed and expressed. 

Sin alters our design by drawing us away from finding our role in a bigger story (that’s not ultimately about us) and toward a manipulated view of the world where everyone else plays a part in our own story of self-fulfillment.

Being made in the image of God says something profound about our identity and purpose. We have worth and value because we reflect the God who made us; we have purpose because we were made to reflect him, like a mirror. In our work and rest, through our creativity and authority, in our relationship to others and to the world, we reflect the God who created us out of love.

To sum up, the beginning of the Bible starts with God. He’s the point, not us. That means, ultimately, you’re not self-creating; you’re God-created. You’re not self-designed; you’re God-designed.

PRAY 

Father, I confess I’m inclined to search for self-fulfillment apart from you. Help me to rest in the fact that my worth and value come from you because I’m made in your image. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.