Who Am I?

Some days my insecurity astounds me. I look back at how I behaved with someone, and I think, "That's wasn't me. That was me trying to be someone the other person would like. Someone they'd think was cool, funny, interesting, a great person to know. Someone smart and witty and put-together. And it didn't quite come off the way I would have wanted. Even if it had, I'd rather be someone caring and thoughtful, humble, attentive and kind. I wish I'd thought to say abc, and ask xyz."

But coming across in a particular way, and really being that way deep down, are two different things. What I really need is an ongoing transformation inside...until who I'd like to be, and who I am, are the same thing.

In our C. S. Lewis study this week, we reached the chapter in Mere Christianity called "Let's Pretend."

Some quotes:

...you are dressing up as Christ. If you like, you are pretending. [snip] You are not a being like the Son of God, whose will and interests are at one with those of the Father: you are a bundle of self-centred fears, hopes, greeds, jealousies, and self-conceit, all doomed to death. So that, in a way, this dressing up as Christ is a piece of outrageous cheek. But the odd thing is that He has ordered us to do it.

...there are two kinds of pretending [snip]...a good kind, where the pretence leads up to the real thing. [snip] Very often the only way to get a quality in reality is to start behaving as if you had it already.

...The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself...

...a real Person, Christ, here and now, in that very room where you are saying your prayers, is doing things to you. [snip] a living Man, still as much a man as you, and still as much God as He was when He created the world, really coming and interfering with your very self; killing the old natural self in you and replacing it with the kind of self He has. At first, only for moments. Then for longer periods. Finally, [snip] permanently...

I want to press deeper into His transformation of my self into someone more like Him, with His joy, confidence, compassion, honesty, humility, and authenticity.