There are many expressions that we use in our culture to describe the various sides of our personalities but the one that comes to my mind most readily is: “Two sides of the same coin,” however there is more to our “sides” than simple personality traits. There is a true self and a false self and they are both alive and well in most of us. There is a small population who have managed to fight their way to just their true self but… trust me those people are rare. They’re basically unicorns. This past week I was asked what parts of me are my “false self,” and I found myself at a loss. I honestly had no idea. I wasn’t sure which parts of me were real, God ordained traits and which were lies that I’ve built up over time. I think that the Lord has called me to the race in part so that I could begin to contend with this. I’ve decided to make it a goal of mine to work out what comprises my “false self” and figure out how exactly it rooted its way in.
Throughout these few weeks, I’ve also been trying to become more in tune with the voice of the Holy Spirit. One of the ways that I have been practicing this is by asking the Spirit to guide me to the passage of the Bible He is trying to show me every day when I have my quiet time. The other morning the Lord guided me to Daniel 11. If you’re not familiar with the book of Daniel (I know I’m no scholar) there are a few key things to know: Daniel lived during the time that the Jewish people were captives in Babylon. They seemed to have such little hope. In the first half of the book we learn more about the life of Daniel and in the second half, we get to hear the visions that Daniel was given in order to provide encouragement to the Jewish people.
When I first flipped to the passage I was a little confused, but I decided to read on and see what it was the Lord had for me. Chapter 11 is one of the visions given by Daniel. It details a dispute between the king of the north and the king of the south that raged on for many years. Both kings experienced triumph over one another but in the end, the king of the north claims the final victory. After that… the king of the north meets his end alone but… that’s not really the point here. Once I was about halfway through the passage the Father showed me why He had directed me there. He was showing me that there is a war raging inside of my heart, and the war is over me. My true self is the king of the north. My false self is the king of the south. It will be a lifelong process and each self will find triumph along the way, but eventually, my true self WILL conquer. Abba has granted me that promise. He desires for me to be completely the woman that He dreamt of so long ago and He will help me get there so long as I put in the work. This month my goal is to really lean into what my identity is according to the Bible. My identity as a woman, as a missionary, and as a follower of Christ is all just waiting to be confirmed in the word. I’m hoping that this will allow me to identify at least one aspect of my false self so that I can begin to fight more actively in this war.
