Discovering your false self is very important for spiritual growth. God wants to reveal any falseness and destroy your false or ideal self. Your false or ideal self is the “self” you created since childhood in order to avoid being rejected and be accepted by others. It includes all the inauthentic strategies you develop to cope with your world. Some people create a false self that always smiles and cooperates and agrees with everyone. Others create a false self that prefers to oppose and fight others; their false self is the “tough” self. Some create a false self that escapes rejection altogether by hiding behind hobbies or studies or career. There are endless varieties of false self and we all have our own individual version. Letting go of your false self can be a huge challenge.
Of course, the result of adopting a false self is that others do not know the real you. Thus, you can not have a healthy relationship with them because they do not know who you are, so you cannot experience the fulfillment of a supportive friendship because others cannot connect with the real you. This will leave you lonely.
One very common version of the false self for Christians is the religious false self. This false self pretends that everything is okay inside us, that we don’t have major problems or weaknesses, and that we don’t struggle with trusting and loving God. We always try to look “good” spiritually. This ruins Christian fellowship because we don’t let others share our burdens and encourage us.
With some people, their religious false self is obvious from the outside. But many of us wear our false selves so deep inside that no one including ourselves is aware of it. This is why it takes many years for some of us to realize we have deep anger or unbelief toward God. We don’t want to admit it because that destroys our false image of ourselves. But many, if not most, mature believers I have known, including myself, discovered deep-seated anger or unbelief towards God after many years as a Christian. We had to take a lot of time to get fully in touch with those emotions and continually express them to God. This leads to an honest relationship with God that allows his Spirit to change us down deep so that his wellsprings of life can flow through us. He will reveal the roots of our emotions and in time pull out the damaging roots. Then we can mature in our communion with God.
How much false self have you found in your life and what was it like? Where might you have more false self? Are you false in how you relate with certain people? How do you deal with your false self? As you let go of your false self what positive changes have you seen in your life?
