Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1

A Tale of Two Selves

The essence of Christian spirituality is following Christ on a journey of personal transformation . . . ​The distant land to which we are called . . . ​is the new creature into which Christ wishes to fashion us—the whole and holy person that finds his or her uniqueness, identity and calling in Christ. —David G. Benner, Sacred Companions: The Gift of Spiritual Friendship & Direction

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do . . . ​For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. —Romans 7:15, 18–19

We live in a quandary. On one hand, when we embrace the indwelling love and presence of God, we are transformed from the inside out. We taste freedom when we trust God to meet our deepest longings. We experience true abundance, resonant peace, and grounded wholeness by abiding in Jesus. And our hearts desire to follow wherever Jesus takes us.

Yet, like the apostle Paul said in the Scripture above, we are perplexed. We want to do right but don’t do it. And we do things we resolved not to do. Do you relate to this? I sure do. One instant I’m focused and the next I’m wandering. One minute I’m patient and the next I’m seething. I embark on self-improvement plans, but they never last very long. This is baffling. It’s as if two people are living in my one body. Does this sound familiar?

An adaptation from Charles Dickens’s classic A Tale of Two Cities aptly describes this human dilemma: “There is the best of me, there is the worst of me, there is the wise me, there is the foolish me, there is the me who believes, there is the me who doubts, there is the me who is in light, there is the me who is in darkness, there is the me who hopes, there is the me who despairs, there is the me with everything ahead, there is the me with nothing ahead, there is the me who looks to heaven, there is the me who looks the other way . . .”

John Ortberg puts it this way: “You are your own nemesis, your own biggest problem, because there is a relationship between the best version of you and the worst version of you. What they have in common is that both of them are you.”

This is our tale of two selves. Both selves are referenced in several Scriptures. The apostle Paul termed them the old self and the new self, one to put off and one to put on. “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:22–24). “You have taken off your old self with its practices, and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (Col. 3:9–10).

Jesus spoke of these two selves in the primary passages we will consider throughout this book: “ Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? ” (Luke 9:23–25). Jesus seems to be saying that we have a “very self” that differs from the self we are to disown. In other words, there is a self to lose and a self to find. This requires some contemplation.

Many spiritual teachers, from ancient times to modern day, name these the “false self” and the “true self.” In his insightful book The Deeper Journey: The Spirituality of Discovering Your True Self, theology professor M. Robert Mulholland explains the importance of understanding these two selves in the Christian spiritual life: “There are two fundamental ways of being human in the world: trusting in our human resources and abilities or a radical trust in God. You cannot be grasped or sustained in the deeper life in God—being like Jesus—until you are awakened at the deep levels of your being to this essential reality . . . ​Unless you are aware of these two selves, these two ways of being in the world, you will have difficulty allowing God to lead you into a deeper life of wholeness in Christ.”

As I’ve contemplated the reality of these two selves and sought to distinguish them in my own life, I’ve adopted two titles that are easier for me to get my head around: the Adapted Self and the Authentic Self.

Our old self, or false self, develops out of our need to adapt, adjust, and accommodate to the world in which we live. It’s the self we eventually believe we must be in order to survive and have our basic needs met. This is the self to lose.

And then there’s the true self—our new self, the one created to reflect God’s image in a unique way. It’s the deeper self that’s made to be in union with God. It’s the self that longs to emerge through the layers of our Adapted Self in order to experience and express our original design. This is our self to find.

Whatever terms we use, our spiritual growth requires that we acknowledge the reality of our two selves and the dilemma we face as we ask the universal question: “Who am I really?”

One Halloween our grandson expressed this human dilemma quite adamantly. He was dressing in his very thin Transformer robot costume when his mom insisted he wear it over his own clothes before heading out into the cold. He protested. The argument persisted until he finally shouted, “If people see my regular clothes sticking out, they will know that I’m just a little kid in a costume!”

As we held back our laughter, we also realized he had proclaimed something profound. To him, he was both an imaginary Optimus Prime and a real boy. To us, we seem to embody two identities at the same time, one that is pretend and one that is true. If these two selves coexist together, how do we discern the difference between our Authentic Self and our Adapted Self?

Perhaps a better understanding of these two selves will help.