Does your Identity Limit Spiritual Growth?
Our freedom from the prison of our own illusions comes in realizing that in the end everything is a gift. James Finley
Gregg’s Reflection
I spent several years studying structural consulting with Robert Fritz. I was certified to do this work with organizations, but find the most powerful expression of the work is with individuals. In my work with young leaders, I find many of them have a wire crossed in their thinking, as I did for decades. It often has to do with identity issues.
Why does this limit our spiritual growth? Because research shows that the foundation for spiritual growth is the belief in Salvation by Grace through Faith. Salvation by grace is not only one of Paul’s basic teachings, but it was the defining belief through which Martin Luther launched the Reformation 500 years ago. Until one truly believes in Salvation by Grace, spiritual growth will be stunted. As long as we think we can do it ourselves, we will never really grow.
Hence the challenge with identity issues. In my structure work, I find crossed wires interfere with living into Salvation by Grace. I even find this among pastors. Four years of seminary training has not unearthed these crossed wires. Counseling often leaves these identity issues shrouded in darkness where they lay in the unconscious. From the subconscious mind they dictate counterproductive behavior.
One form of these issues is perfectionism, which can rest on a failure identity. The self-belief is that “I am a failure.” To disprove this, people will extend tremendous effort proving the belief wrong. Yet, paradoxically, every effort to prove the belief wrong fails, reinforcing the feeling of failure. Of course it fails, because we cannot be perfect.
As long as we are trying to prove ourselves acceptable, what role does Salvation by Grace have? In my own life, a structure emerged as a reaction to being around my father’s perfectionism. As the second son, I was “not good enough.” This structure is led me to believe one must achieve certain things to pay for taking up space on the planet.
When I began my EMBA, I felt the need to prove myself to my 50 classmates. I was one of three in the class of 50 without an undergraduate degree. In the Organizational Behavior class, I heard of the Imposter’s Phenomenon. Wikipedia defines it this way:
“Despite external evidence of their competence, those with the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved. Proof of success is a result of deceiving others into thinking they are more intelligent and competent than they believe themselves to be.”
This described me to a tee. I was constantly worried people would find I was not competent. My business success was fueled from this dark place: Constant striving, motivation from a negative space, pushing others to buy into my strategies, inability to recognize others are free to say no to this compulsion.
Each structure is a distortion of reality, and out of each comes self-limiting behavior that sabotages relationships and success. Since these issues are often operating below the conscious level of thinking, people don’t realize that they are holding up a myth with all their might.
When Fritz did my structural consult, it only took a few questions to bring my structure into view. I thought I had been trying to prove myself to my long-dead father, and realized I was really trying to prove myself to God. Fritz asked me, “Is that how your religion works?” I realized I had been propping up a lie in my subconscious, the idea that I could be “Good enough.” Bringing the structure into the light robbed it of much of its power. Sadly, you cannot just die to such a belief once. I have since found myself slipping back into the structure, but it feels like an ill-fitting suit of clothes when I try to put it back on.
How does that affect growing towards spiritual maturity? As long as I am laboring in one of these structures I am substituting myself for God. I attempt through my good works to prove myself worthy to God. Even the idea that perfection is possible keeps us from admitting that we are sinners incapable of winning God’s grace. We are holding to an untrue myth that we could be good enough. How can I live deeper into God’s grace if I am still trying to prove I don’t really need it?
God extended grace by sending his son Jesus, in whom we are invited to place our identity. In gratitude, we move through submission and surrender into obedience. Structure tries to reverse the flow of grace, by telling us we must be obedient enough to please God, as illustrated above. Structure calls us to trust ourselves, not God.
In reality, we are trying to be our own little saviors. If I can be perfect, or prove myself worthy, I don’t really need the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross or the gift of the Spirit. I can do this myself.
This was summed up to me in a humorous way, “The difference between you and God is that God doesn’t think he’s you.” If I am going to grow spiritually, I first need to understand that I can’t do it myself. Even the faith to believe in God is a gift from God. As long as I am in denial of God’s role in my salvation, I cannot grow into His grace. All of my efforts go into proving myself, and not into walking humbly with my Lord, doing good works as His Spirit enables me.
I pray that you will find clarity through Christ in your identity as an adopted heir to the Kingdom. May all the good works in your life flow out of gratitude for what Christ has done and not out of obligation to prove yourself worthy. Amen.
Journaling Prompts
Robert Fritz says it is the riverbed that shapes the direction of the river. Deeply embedded false beliefs are the riverbed of our lives. What pieces of unhealthy self-image have you been able to shed as you have grown? What might be self-sabotaging beliefs you want to examine to see if they are true in reality? What practice lets you experience the compassion and love of God?
Scripture
Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
Genesis 15:6
In the wilderness you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place. In spite of this, you did not trust in the Lord your God.
Deuteronomy 1:31-32
Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
Psalm 20:7
Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, who does not look to the proud, to those who turn aside to false gods.
Psalm 40:4
He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8
I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
John 15:5
For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.
Romans 12:3
May Christ dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all of the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:17-19
So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.
Galatians 4:7
Modern Writings
The most deceptive rules are not the ones we can see, but the ones we can’t. These can be found hiding deeper in the mind, often unnoticed, just beyond our awareness. Rules that entered our thinking through childhood programming, lessons we’ve forgotten, osmosis from the culture. These rules can serve or limit us.
Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A way of being, p. 100-101
Extreme busyness is a symptom of deficient vitality, and a faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity.
It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.
We have to remind ourselves constantly that we are not saviours. We are simply a tiny sign, among thousands of others, that love is possible, that the world is not condemned to a struggle between oppressors and oppressed, that class and racial warfare is not inevitable.
Spiritual identity means we are not what we do or what people say about us. And we are not what we have. We are the beloved daughters and sons of God.
Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the Beloved. Being the Beloved expresses the core truth of our existence.
Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World
For as long as you can remember, you have been a pleaser, depending on others to give you an identity. You need not look at that only in a negative way. You wanted to give your heart to others, and you did so quickly and easily. But now you are being asked to let go of all these self-made props and trust that God is enough for you. You must stop being a pleaser and reclaim your identity as a free self.
Unless we base our sense of identity upon the truth of who we are, it is impossible to attain true happiness.
People fear their hidden selves, afraid that they will burst out.
Our freedom from the prison of our own illusions comes in realizing that in the end everything is a gift. Above all, we ourselves are gifts that we must first accept before we can become who we are by returning who we are to the Father. This is accomplished in a daily death to self.
James Finley, Merton’s Palace of Nowhere, p. 48
The Christian path involves dismantling our false identity. To unmask our false or separate self, we need a kind of “inner observer” or “fair witness.” At first that sounds impossible, but after a while it becomes quite natural. Our “inner observer” becomes the part of us that’s brutally honest with ourselves—not only in the negative sense but in the positive, too. For example, “You really love God and long for God. You are good. Stop treating yourself so brutally. Have compassion for yourself. You are a child of God.” This helps us to distinguish moralizing from authentic morality, shame from appropriate guilt, false pride from genuine strength.
Richard Rohr, CAC Morning Devotion, 3/1/20
God’s passion is to rig the world so that we are compelled to deal with whatever blocks us from being like His glorious Son.
Dan B. Allender, The Cry of the Soul: How Our Emotions Reveal our Deepest Questions about God.
All discomfort comes from suppressing your true identity.