Awareness of yourself and your relationship with God are intricately related. In fact, the challenge to shed our “old false” self in order to live authentically in our “new true” self strikes at the very core of authentic spirituality.

I may not agree with you or you with me. Yet I can remain in relationship with you. I don’t have to detach from you, reject you, avoid you, or criticize you to validate myself. I can be myself apart from you.

So much of our true selves is buried alive—sadness, rage, anger, tenderness, joy, happiness, fear, depression. Yet God designed our bodies to respond physiologically to those in the world around us.

The Wall compels us into the Journey Inward.

The difference is that now we give out of a new, grounded center of ourselves in God.

To feel is to be human. To minimize or deny what we feel is a distortion of what it means to be image bearers of God. To the degree that we are unable to express our emotions, we remain impaired in our ability to love God, others, and ourselves well.

spiritual warfare work against us. Yet

Such Christian activities become detrimental when we use them in an unconscious attempt to escape pain.

Three powerful temptations, however, threaten us. Each, in its own way, screams: “God’s love for you will never be enough! You are not lovable. You are not good enough.”