Have you ever been told that you need to "blaze your own trail" in order to "find yourself" along the way?
I think that's a bold enticing lie. Don't believe it. (I was going to use words like "hogwash", "Phooey" and "baloney" but decided not to be juvenile about it.**)
Your trail has already been blazed. Your self has already been found. You don't need to figure out as much as you suspect you do because you have already been figured. Hope this doesn't disappoint you— in fact, I hope this encourages you — Someone has already gone before you, has already cut the path, and has already revealed who you are.
You are not the first one to the party. The party creator has already been there… and for quite a while, waiting for you to show up.
So instead of hacking away at a new bramble and instead of looking for your self in the densest thicket, consider pursuing the Trail Blazer.
The irony is that if you want to find your self, you should stop focusing so much of your attention on looking for your self. If you want to know who you are, you should actually be earnestly looking for your Creator.
The "you" I've been writing about in this blog post is of course translatable to "me". I've traveled hills and valleys and deserts and oceans in search of who I am. I've taken dozens of personality tests (ENFP, High "I", Motivator, Catalyst, etc.) each supposedly describing me… and yet for some reason I have kept taking the tests to confirm the other tests. And now, as I've entered into the middle ages of life… I've begun to experience moments of mid-life identity crisis (e.g. this post). While this should be expected, it has also been a surprise. On occasion I seem to "lose" my self in the consideration of my self (like becoming overwhelmed with a desire to buy a motorcycle just to prove that I could buy a motorcycle just to prove I am in fact still a virile young man). In other words, In my search for myself, the more I focus on my self, the more complicated or confused or frustrated about myself I seem to become.
But all of that identity crisis melts away when I stop my endlessly circular search for myself to consider God, my Creator, my Trail Blazer. Who I am gains perspective in the discovery of God. To know as I am known– that is the trail we should follow. Psalm 119:105 = Your word is a lamp to my feet, a light to my path. Instead of searching for the path in the dark, God's word allows us see– sometimes only step by step – yes— to discover the path set out before us.
A.W. Tozer wrote this about discovering who we are and what we are to do with our lives:
"The pursuit of God will embrace the labor of bringing our total personality into conformity to His. And this not judicially, but actually. I do not here refer to the act of justification of faith in Christ. I speak of a voluntary exalting of God to His proper station over us and a willing surrender of our whole being to the place of worshipful submission which the Creator-creature circumstance makes proper."
– A.W. Tozer, Pursuit of God, Christian Publication, 1948, p102
** Hogwash = meaningless or insincere talk, writing, etc.; nonsense; bunk. Originally referred to slop fed to pigs.
Phooey = an exclamation indicating rejection, contempt, or disgust. Originally a Yiddish word (1600s)
Baloney = slang: foolishness, nonsense. It is commonly confused with balogna, a large seasoned sausage made of finely ground meat, usually beef and pork, that has been cooked and smoked.
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