We spend a lot of time looking for things that will make us feel complete.
This search drives us to read widely, to follow gurus on Instagram, to collect experience after experience. Along the way we learn things. Good things, even! And yet, that hunger for meaning doesn’t go away. Just like that U2 song, we still haven’t found what we’re looking for.
If any of that resonates, you might believe that you’ll never find what you need. That you’ll always feel incomplete. But it doesn’t have to be the way.
The problem we most often face is that we’re looking in the wrong places. You’ve spent a lot of time searching the world and asking others for their wisdom. Have you considered that what you need might not be out there?
Consider what Peter writes in his first epistle:
By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. (1 Peter 1:3)
Did you catch that? Our spirits have been designed by God to provide us with everything need to live authentically and contribute powerfully to His creation.
As I’ve written before, each of us has four parts to our spiritual anatomy – heart, soul, mind, and strength. And each part is essential. If any one of them is missing or misfiring, your life’s potential is at risk. (It’s what puts you in danger of burning out, flaming out, or tapping out.)
Often, people find these concepts abstract and hard to fathom at first. That’s why I’ve started describing them as characters (or personas):
- The heart part of you is a Loving Companion
- The soul part of you is a Visionary Guide
- The mind part of you is a Strategic Overseer
- The strength part of you is a Driven Warrior
Over the next four weeks, I’m going to explore each of these characters more fully so you can begin to see how they’re already present in you. More importantly, as you start seeing them as real parts of yourself, you’ll begin learning how to integrate them as show up as the complete person God created you to be.
Life has a way of lulling these characters to sleep or, even worse, burying them alive. That’s why I want you to keep asking yourself this question: “Which of these characters are asleep or even buried in me?”
Do not dismiss this question. It applies to all of us. There is a unique and specific person God made you to be, and somewhere along the way (if you are like most people), the key personas of your makeup got buried. You might even recognize the things that so often conceal the parts of us we need to show up fully as our true selves:
- other people’s expectations
- religious dogma
- cultural values
- authoritative demands
- painful life experiences
- misguided dreams imposed on us by our culture, by the media, by pastors, by teachers, by coaches, by parents
Even the most successful people tend to feel unsettled within, despite the external accolades and adornments that were supposed to bring confidence and peace.
Is it any wonder so many feel lost?
The good news is those characters within – the ones you need to emerge as the real you – are still in there. As long as you’re alive, so are they. And the time has come for you to be fully revealed in all your glory to the glory of God. This is your calling.
Are you ready for that? Are you ready to stop searching far and wide for something you’ll never find and instead live from within as your complete self?
