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In theological terms, God is archetypal and man is ectypal.
That is, God is the self-existent one and man is derivative of Him; man owes his entire being to God. Man is dependent upon God for his existence and cannot exist apart from God.
When man is struggling with issues of identity – with wanting to feel comfortable in his own skin – it does him no good to solely examine himself. In order to fully know himself and fully understand himself, man must seek God and endeavor to know Him.
John Calvin was very wise when he wrote in the opening pages of his Institutes:
“Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves…In the first place, no one can look upon himself without immediately turning his thoughts to the contemplation of God, in whom he, “lives and moves,” [Acts 17:28].”
And again a little bit later on:
“Moreover, although our mind cannot apprehend God without rendering some honor to Him, it will not suffice simply to hold that there is One whom all out to honor and adore, unless we are also persuaded that He is the fountain of every good, and that we must seek nothing elsewhere than in Him.”
Not only must we recognize that apart from knowledge of God will we never truly know ourselves, but also that a true knowledge of God consists of worship, reverence, awe, and humility.
To know God will cause us to worship God, and to worship God will allow us to see His magnificence, and accordingly our place in His plan and His kingdom.
“Our knowledge should serve first to teach us fear and reverence; secondly, with it as our guide and teacher, we should learn to seek ever good from Him…you cannot behold Him clearly unless you acknowledge Him to be the fountainhead and source of every good.”
Do not feel insecure, inadequate, or anxious. Know God has created you – as you – specifically.
Turn to Him, seek Him, and worship Him.
“You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart”
- Jeremiah 29:13
“God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth”
- John 4: 24
Only when you lose sight of yourself in all that God is, will you truly find yourself.
There is no more sickening a feeling in the pit of your stomach than leaving a conversation or encounter, only to replay it in your mind like this:
“Did I say too much? Too little? Should I have offered a different opinion? Should I have offered no opinion at all? Does he even like me? Does she even want to talk to me? Why didn’t I speak up more? Why did I speak up so much?”
Few things are more cutting or caustic to one’s confidence and ability than insecurity.
Few things are more painful than simply not feeling comfortable in your own skin.
More often than not, we leave situations only to look in a mirror and ask, “Lord, who am I? Who have you created me to be? Why? How am I gifted? How may my life best be used to worship, honor, and glorify You?” Insecurity and inadequacy are feelings that occur far too frequently in our hearts and minds.
However, this question of, “Who am I?” is often the wrong question.
Rather, we should be asking, “God, who are you?”
Left to our own flesh, we will sink only lower into the pit of wallowing, self-pity, and desperation. Left to answer the question of, “who am I?” by ourselves, we will only find disappointment and misery.
However, when asking, “God, who are you?” we see the focus move from us to God, and there is no point of focus more worthy than Him.
In seeking God and desiring to know Him, we realize not that we are inadequate, inferior, or insecure, but that we are wanting when our life is lived apart from His grace, love, and truth.
We will turn soon to how we can rightly know ourselves through seeking God by understanding what John Calvin meant when he wrote of the two-fold knowledge of God and man, but for now rest easy in God’s grip and worship Him.
He has created you, He knows you, and He has purposed you very specifically.
In times of inadequacy and insecurity, remember you are precious to God: He numbers the hairs on your head (Matthew 10:30), goes behind and before you (Psalm 139:5), and has a magnificent plan for you (Jeremiah 29:11).
Is the task of becoming a self ever completed?
When in a written examination the youth are allotted four hours to develop a theme, then it is neither here nor there if an individual student happens to finish before the time is up, or uses the entire time. Here, therefore, the task is one thing, the time another. But when the time itself is the task, it becomes a fault to finish before the time has transpired. Suppose a man were assigned the task of entertaining himself for an entire day, and he finishes this task of self-entertainment as early as noon, then his celerity would not be meritorious. So also when life constitutes the task. To be finished with life before life has finished with one, is precisely not to have finished the task.
His words ringing with ample amounts of both wit and wisdom, Kierkegaard warns that to be over-eager for “perfection” or “completion” is to result in perpetual immaturity.
Oswald Chambers says that the downfall of Christians comes when they place their desire for personal holiness and righteousness above their desire to know God.
We are instructed to, one day at a time, make it a goal to simply desire to know God; seek His face and stand under His glory and power.
Paul says in Philippians 1:6, “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
This completion Paul speaks of will not come quickly, nor will it come easily, but it will come, for this is the promise of God.
What Kierkegaard is saying is that never, of our own accord, are we rendered capable of declaring, “I have arrived.”
We are, however, given the length of our life to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, to love and serve Him, to worship Him, and allow our lives to reflect His glory, and we embark on these tasks only through His empowering.
Such is the purpose of our lives: the glorification of God, as opposed to the betterment or perfection of the self.
The goal of life is holiness (as opposed to wholeness), and such heights are achieved solely through the process of sanctification – whereby God refines our faith, molding and shaping us for His glorious purposes.
Sanctification will be a theme running for duration of our life; in Kierkegaardian terms, it will not simply last the first part of the test or culminate during the early afternoon of the day. As long as there is breath in our lungs, sanctification will be an everyday reality for us.
