Human beings are wired so that they need some great authority outside themselves to tell him or her who they really are. But for many people that voice is not there, because their lives are not oriented towards God. When that is the case, the very first thing that will happen in their lives will be to question their worth and their value. Does my life really matter? And this is what causes us to beging to hide ourselves from others. --- from a Harvard lecture by Donald Miller
Armand Nicholi, Jr. a pychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, wrote on C.S. Lewis in his book The Question of God... As Lewis began to read the Old and New Testaments seriously, he noted a new method of establishing his identity, of coming to terms with his "real personality." This process, Lewis writes, involves losing yourself in your relationship to the Creator. "Until you have given yourself up to Him," Lewis writes, "you will not have a real self."
We have indeed, it seems, become a nation of conspicuos consumers. We purchase cars, homes, and all types of items, not for their functionality but rather to make a statement on our status to an audience that we hope will watching us. How we appear to others has become the driving force behind most of our major purchases.
Fear can produce a complexity of emotions. It can be a powerful force for taking positive action in our lives or it can produce potentially crippling emotions.
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