People often say, “I’m tired of living up to other people’s expectations. I need to be who I am.” Ironically, who I am is not the solution; it’s the problem. When you are a sinner, “Be true to yourself” is bad advice….Finding myself is not the solution. Only losing myself in finding Christ is the solution. The good news is that God came into the world to save you from yourself and transform you into a new person.

“Find yourself” is common advice. But in the end, people who follow it find only ugliness, brokenness, and unhappiness. They pursue dreams, and find nightmares.

I don’t need to find myself. I do need to go to God’s Word. It will act as a mirror to show me my true reflection, one very different than what I would like to see. Scripture tells me that I’m a sinner, and that sin brings death. Sin, the original killer of happiness, is not my solution; it’s my problem. Eden was paradise, but sin ended paradise. What it didn’t destroy was the deep-seated awareness that we were made for the happiness only God can give.

The sinful self is destined to be an unhappy self. The miserable man searching for happiness needs to see his true condition—he is a sinful man desperate to be transformed. The quest to be himself is a false quest. He is himself already, and that’s his most fundamental problem.

You cannot find yourself in sin. Or rather, the self you find is not the self you truly want to be. Misery can actually be a kindness to us if it shows us our true condition while by God’s grace, we can still do something about it.

Read More