The Reality of Inner Turmoil
The search for meaning and the sense of belonging is very strong among people.
As the child gets older there tends to be a crossroads where there is a grasp for some sense of identity. All of life’s issues can swirl around in the mind and lead to a sense of not knowing the self. In a grasp or some sense of identity with the array of options on offer it can be easy to fall into some routine which has some nominal sense of meaning – such as the get-a-job-get-a-house-get-a-car-get-married-get-children-get-promoted-get-children-to-college/university-get-retired-get-dead option.
What such options don’t resolve are some of the inner turmoil regarding identity. The reality of sin addressed in the last segment on peace, is also side-stepped in society so a lot of the wrong in the world remains hurtful and wrong, with no apparent reason.
At best people grow to an arrangement with the inner turmoil. They either medicate it with prescription construction, or through leisure activities, or through being identified with their work or their family.
It doesn’t resolve the issue and the shards of brokenness are evident in relational issues and general discontent with life. Yet in as much as it has not resolved issues, it keeps things going, even if things are heading for a sombre end.
An Answer From Ourselves
The answer of humanism is to centre experience and the primacy of life in on itself. The answer to the problem can be found from within. The great capacity of the human will and mind can construct meaning all by itself and at the societal level we just learn to mould it around others as best we can.
In some ways faiths like Christianity can get sucked into a humanistic tendency, where the narrative of scripture is centred on humanity. John 3:16 is used to suggest that God sees humanity as the most important deal in creation and everything He does is geared with humanity in mind.
God Is Not A Humanist
The problem with this perspective, is the same as the problem with humanism itself. that problem is simply this – we cannot be all there is to existence and creation.
Further still if you take on board the reality of God and what He says about Himself in scripture although His love for humanity is apparent, it is not as apparent that humanity is the centre of His attention.
This is best seen in the life of Jesus Christ. Depicted as the perfect man, Jesus spent His entire life only doing what He saw His Father do. He did everything pleasing to His Father. At the height of His agony in the garden of Gethsemane He did not with His own will, but the will of His Father. At the cross as He was breathing His life, He committed Himself over to His Father.
It makes sense that the Son acknowledged and centred His life on His Father. His example revealed the ultimate sensible understanding of creation, that to truly know meaning is to know the Creator. On knowing the Creator we discover that He created all things … for Himself. We are not the centre of the universe. He is. Things do not revolve around us, it is centred on Him.
The Problem When We Are The Centre Of The Universe
Sin takes us away from that reality. Sin brings the fractured and distorted effort to look to everything other than God as god and who better to put on the throne of the universe than Mankind? Such an enthronement, as we saw in the last post in the series, is the reason for so much devastation across creation. Nowhere is that apparent than in the human condition.
Having appointed ourselves rulers of our own destinies and the centrepoint of all things, we begin to realise that not only do we not have the wisdom to deal with such a situation, but we tend to mess the thing up. Our very best efforts are a pretty gloss over deeply entrenched wounds and flaws.
Some accept this as the only option open to humanity. some people accept it and embrace. They wonder what’s the point in aspiring to anything else, when all we guarantee is disappointment?
How God’s Peace Helps Resolve The Inner Conflict
Recognising there is a God who created us and loved us changes everything. It helps to define us in a way that doesn’t leave us hollow as other means often do. The peace made available through Christ goes a long way to help us come to terms with the truth. The truth that we will never be at peace with our inner self, until we acknowledge the Creator and yield to His will in shaping us.
Greater still, the peace that Christ made available to us, reconnects us with God and allows healing to take place. Healing of the flaws and failing and indeed He still chooses to use us with these faults and failings. We need not have a hollow self-commendation, we can have the fulfilling assurance of God as our Father telling us we are His sons and daughters. We belong to Him, our identity is wrapped up in Him and that solves the internal warfare.
Personal Experience: It’s Not All Over, But It Is
When I say that solves the internal warfare, I am by no means suggesting that we don’t have issues with ourselves anymore. I mean in the larger scale of things a new truth says that when we look in the mirror whatever picture we see is actually replaced with the truth that in my identity crisis, Christ is my identity.
I have peace with myself, when I understand that not only am I forgiven, I am a new creation, I am a brand new man. The born again experience is the life I live is now the life of Christ.
It is easy to get dissuaded from that reality. I know from painful experience, how easy it is to get wrapped up in my issues and get bogged down in them. I know what it is like to allow the ‘observations’ of others about me, hinder me and trap me in a cycle of selfish defiance or self-loathing acceptance. I know what it is like to have the pressure of looking to live up to other people’s expectation of a ‘good Christian life’ and yet suffer from internal complexities that make me feel like a sham.
I have experienced that, and yet the truth remains the same. Jesus remains ever present to remind us of this way, and even when I don’t feel like it, He patiently waits for me to get to the end of myself and then embraces me all over again and gently teaches me what it is to say to live is Christ and to die is gain.
That enriching peace with myself does not exalt me to being a brilliant specimen who is good in and of himself. Neither will it allow me to wallow in the things that make me sad about myself. As Andrae Crouch would sing in his tribute to God, all that I am and ever hope to be, I owe it all to God. He has placed His Holy Spirit within and that makes a significant difference to how I view myself. A son of the King can never consider himself a no one and a nothing, but at the same time the peace within says that as I belong to God, I must allow Him to rule in my life to maintain the peace.
That peace then makes a difference to how things happen in relationship with others …
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
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