The following quotes caught my attention as I (Matt Smethurst) read Matt Fuller’s timely new book, Be True to Yourself: Why It Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Does (and How That Can Make You Happy), published by The Good Book Company.
A couple of decades ago, I could come out with a statement, and someone who disagreed with me might say, “Is that true?” Now they’re more likely to say, “That doesn’t resonate with me.” (14)
It’s very hard to build your life and identity upon something which is constantly in flux. If I keep on changing, to which self must I be true? The question Who am I? never has a definitive answer in the modern world. (19)
What we’re actually saying is that for most people “Be true to self” means express your own beliefs and practices as long as they conform to a higher cultural truth. Or, to put it simply: “We want you to be true to yourself, as long as your truth is acceptable to us.” With views and practices that we like, we say, “Be true to yourself and don’t worry what anyone else thinks.” With views and practices that we think are wrong, we say, “Your views are horrible and you need to change.” . . . [So] the great cry of our age comes with a significant caveat: “You must be true to yourself” (as long as I don’t dislike your views and behavior). (23)
Our true identity is given to us by God, not discovered by us within. (24)
We all want a sense of meaning. But, boy, is it hard work creating one. By contrast, the loving Creator God says to us, Stop trying to create meaning. I’ve given you a glorious one. (28)
The Lord is the first, and we are his reflection. He is sound and we are echo. He is king and we are servants. We are image, not original—which means we can only understand what it is to be “human” after we have looked at God. (34)
To genuinely be “true to self,” you need to be true to who you are as an image-bearer of God. You will only find a lasting sense of meaning in honoring the original of whom you are an image. (36)
The great irony is that if we exchange the humility the Lord has given us for self-importance, we become far less. (37)
All other creatures are made “according to their kinds”; that is, there are different species within the categories of fish, birds, reptiles and mammals. Yet the only distinction in humanity is male and female. This is so important to notice! The only distinction within the category of humanity is gender. This belongs to the essence of humanity in a way that race, ethnicity or social class do not. All of those differences are secondary. Gender is introduced as essential. (92)
God has designed us for intimate, interdependent relationships, which means that self-giving commitment to another person turns out to be more satisfying than living for yourself. With sex, as with all areas of life, if we really want to know the freedom of being true to ourselves, we need to be true to our status as God’s image-bearers and conduct our relationships in the way that God says we’re designed for. (102)
In life, and certainly in the Christian life, the mark of real maturity is to escape the prison of self-absorption. (106)
Some things are more important than making life easy. (122)
Recently a friend of mine in his mid-40s left his wife and two children for another woman. He told the kids over dinner, “I deserve this.” To which they replied, “We don’t.” Sometimes to be “true to self” means being false to your family. (132)
As one young woman at our church observed, “I think that some of us here are less willing to forgive our friends than we would be a spouse. When husbands are thoughtless, we can tend to roll our eyes, with a Well, what do you expect? But when our friends let us down, our response can be, I’m done with her. I’m cutting her out of my life.” (149)
Our social circles at church should feel inclusive. . . . Those of us who do find ourselves happily in families or friendship groups, here is a call to make those families and groups more porous. We should be outward looking like the Trinity. We can’t even begin to imagine the intensity of love between the Father, Son and Spirit, and yet still they say, Join us. We ought to have families which echo that attitude and love. (148, 151)
There is a great irony that in a culture which increasingly encourages everyone to be true to themselves, people are going to ever greater lengths to alter reality online. (154)
There is a moral context to beauty. You cannot call something beautiful which is not true or good. And you cannot call something good which is not true or beautiful. (158)
Churches are wonderfully messy! They are not organized by an algorithm, so that you only meet like-minded people. They are not designed to present information specifically to your individual tastes. Church prevents us from simply hanging out with PLUs (people like us). That means our views are challenged, our opinions are changed, and our blind spots are revealed. More than that, the rough edges of our characters can be smoothed. Committing to a church stirs us out of being self-serving and shapes us into people who are self-giving. Unlike Facebook, church tells us that the world does not revolve around “me.” (165)
True happiness doesn’t come from your picture being liked but from your soul being loved—primarily by Jesus and then by friends who know you. When “everybody lies,” then everybody loses. But when a Christian church can be honest with one another and allow wounds to come from people they know and trust deeply, then everybody wins. (169)
God’s Word gives freedom. When we reject him and his boundaries, we end up uncertain of where we’re meant to be heading and we struggle for cohesion in our communities. But when we embrace the boundaries that our good and loving Creator has given us, it gives perfect freedom. (181)