May 24th (published earlier on Facebook) (477 words)
Do you talk to yourself? Have you seen people talking to themselves? Sometimes they are singing in the car, or praying, or trying to memorize something…

Is talking to yourself a good way to know yourself?

Yesterday we finished another Alpha course. Nikki talked about how the Christian life isn’t easy, but it is abundant – full – great! If you want a great life – it is important to live it according to the creator’s design.

How did God intend life to be lived?

The simple answer is in relationship.
We were made to be in a relationship with God (our creator, and father, and friend, and shepherd, and brother and spouse). We were also made to be in relationship with other people.

There is nothing new in this recipe. It is like our installation manual or playbook.

When we look closer at this some things might surprise us.

Last weekend we watched the Disney movie: Finding Dorry. A key character in the film is the octopus. He wants so much to be alone in a little glass box that he goes to great [pool] lengths to help Dorry – so she’ll give him her tag – a ticket to a life of simple solitude.

Here is the rub – knowing yourself can only happen in relationship – interacting with the world around you. Life brings out what you are made of, it bumps the glass so what is inside sloshes out. I’m inviting you to disagree with society and the multi-billion-dollar companies that are telling you that life should be easy – with the purchase of this or that product. Disagree with the movies and TV programs that infer that life should have a happy-ever-after ending. Don’t avoid drama in relationships – work with them to better know yourself and better know others.

The more I get to know myself the more I realize how much I need God and his help in my life. We need the Evangelio – [the gospel truth] – we need God’s provision, his tools, his help in life.

We need God to:
know ourselves so that we can jump deeper and deeper into God.
know ourselves so that we can have mask-free conversations with God and the people around us.
know ourselves by relating to God and the people around us.

Bring yourself out to the world around you – be yourself in and for the world!

God loves you – and he is sculpting you from rough wood – into the image he has in his artist’s mind. This is who you were created to be. Don’t pull back from the artist’s sculpting tools.

So how would you answer the question: is talking to yourself a way of knowing yourself?
What do you think? How do you relate to yourself? Do you speak to yourself with harsh condemning words or do you encourage yourself with words God has given you?