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I’ve said that our lives don’t really change with pushups, a diet, and a budget, and that lasting transformation flows inside-out, not outside-in. This series invites us into the depth dimension of life, in order to scour the depths of what the Bible calls our kardia (inner-self). Missing this discovery is why our efforts at change usually fail.

Give yourself some grace, because we don’t fail despite our efforts, but because of them. We are also not victims or powerless. These narratives are a form of self-hatred and harm, which don’t come from our true (téleos) identity, found in the love of God, but come from our refusal to be our true self. My premise in this series is that an (éxousian-authoity) has convinced us to bow (sacrifice our life) in order to “become someone else.” Our pushups and best intensions are but masks and costumes as we pursue a new pseudonym. We are not free.

Lasting change, healing, or transformation begins at the deepest epicenter of our existence (ontology). If we pursue surface-level things, we forsake knowing who we truly are. I then introduced the dark, quiet closet where we come face to face with reality and discover our true name as the “Beloved of God,” and experience this love by learning to dwell in what has always been loving us into our existence. We are healed by knowing our true identity in the larger family of God.

Like concentric circles then, this path of change begins at the center of our existence and flows outwardl. We will eventually get to the push ups, diet, and budget, but we must stop on the way. Today, the next concentric circles which requires the “axe be laid to the root” are our friends and vocation.

Our family of origin forms our frameworks for identity and cosmology and initiate us into “who we are” in relation to the “how the world works.” The problem is that these framework are too small to give us a successful and fulfilling life. Jesus said “New wine requires new wine skins.” (Mark 2:22). Like a tiny plant, these must be repotted into bigger frameworks or life derails and becomes frustrated. The evidence that we don’t know who we are, nor what we truly want, is that our experience of life is that of struggle, suffering, or pain.

During grade school we first discover that our worldview is different from that of others. Through our peer group, we begin defining who we think we are, gravitating toward cliques that are most similar to us. The authority of our family is exchanged for the authority of our peer group. This goes deeper than social convention, these éxousian (authorites) actually give us a new identity. Teens try these identities on as a means of discovering who they are, but it doesn’t work.

We graduate school unto our vocation, via trade school, military, or college. If ever we bow in order to receive the “Kingdoms of this world,” its through vocation. Vocation externally indexes us more than race, gender, or family. It imposes upon us a durable mark, a pseudonym. If the world values our vocation, we’ll cling to this name with zeal. In reality, a vocation is the necessary service we perform for others in exchange for a living, but it is NOT “who we are.” Vocations are valued in various markets according to skill and knowledge, but this isn’t to be conflated with our personal value. If we accept that value, we’ve made a lethal trade in which we lose our self.

Thus, friends and vocations are institutional authorities and now we can begin healing and liberation from them. I’m not suggesting we live without friends or jobs. Freedom from the world’s authorities requires us to be “in the world, but not of the world” and from there we can heal it.

True freedom is forfeited by over-identifying with institutional power, including our friends or vocations. Consider the friends and jobs we’ve had. How strongly do we require the approval, acceptance, validation, or significance that these éxousian? If our answer isn’t a zero, then we’ve traded our télios (authentic) self for an institutional fake ID.

Let this marinade in your contemplation.

We are NOT defined by where we grew up. We are NOT our Family. We are NOT who our friends are. We are NOT our school’s mascot. We are NOT our Alma Mater. We are NOT our vocations. We are NOT what we do for a living. Though we may be proud to have been a part of these organizations, and though we may have benefitted much by them, they cannot give us our true name, and thus they cannot tell us who we are, nor what we truly want.

Nearly all our struggle and suffering in life stems from confusion or a delusion about who we are and what we want. I’ll offer a brief example and then I’ll offer the correction.

Chris works in a competitive industry and is an awarded sales professional. He or she is married and has two children. Chris works really hard to remain at the top of the stack rank, in part by necessity and part to prove that he/she is a player. Over Chris’s career, he/she has come to see him/her self as “one of the best” and is awarded with manager, director, and even VP level roles. Chris likes telling others he/she is a VP, and enjoys the income and status he/she has earned. Chris loves his/her family, but the marriage is a struggle, and his/her kids are growing apart as their peer group takes over. Chris has overspent in order to “provide the best” for his/her family, and is in a boatload of debt. Chris’s life is a house of cards that require constant juggling, and Chris thinks the only solution is to keep up the illusion. Chris is living a false life, and nothing he/she values will outlast this version of him/her self, and deep down Chris knows it.

I know a thousand Chris’s. They have enviable lives judging from the outside. However, inside they perceive a hollow, haunting question of: “Is this all there is?” When they get honest (télios, real), marriage isn’t that fulfilling, kids are ungrateful and show little honor, and work is actually a threat which says: “It’ll all be gone if you don’t keep serving me.” Chris is a captive, a slave, and cannot get out. Vacations don’t cut it, and retirement is where all the chickens come home to roost. Life spins out into a million false hopes.

Our freedom begins inside out. Once we discover who we are in God, we take away the institution’s power to name us. If our friends and vocations don’t define us, then something transcendent and eternal displaces the temporary and superficial. A true name means we can discover our true purpose, and now the Chris’s of the world will have a searchlight which can lead them into safe harbor. A freed Chris can now re-enter the exact same life, and it re-orders itself around the agenda of liberty and humility, not pride and captivity. That’s the change I’m leading you to in this series.

True and lasting change begin when we subvert the éxousain of our fake ID.