Daily Lesson for December 18, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 3 verses 11b and 12:

11b He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

All of us have a true and also a false self. The true self is who we are when we are when we feel completely at home in our own skin. It is the self which is spontaneous, alive, and without judgment. It is the self we act out of when we dance and make googly eyes before a baby. We do it for he pure joy of it -- and because we know they will not tell.

The false self is a facade built up around the true self. Like the chaff which encases a kernel of wheat, the false self is there to protect and shield us from harm. That is an important and necessary task -- protecting the soul from the wounds of this world. But ultimately, the false self ends up being a kind of protective prison -- one the true self must be freed from in order to give to the world what is was made to give. And what it was made to give to the world is also what the world needs from it - the kernel, the essence, the true self.

Christ comes to reveal our true self to the world. Though hidden in a protective chaff-like shield, Christ comes to give us the courage to risk living without the shield. Yes, this makes us more vulnerable and at greater risk to the world and its wounding ways; but it also makes us more, well, alive.

I want to be my true self -- my joyous, compassionate creative, playful, funny, goofy, singing and sort-of dancing and always intelligent self. I want my children to be raised by this true self. I want my wife to laugh with me at this true self. I want the whole world to know and be blessed by this true self. And I know none of that can happen so long as I'm hiding it behind my false self.