To Know Yourself

Despite the fact that her past plastic surgery spree nearly killed her, Heidi Montag said she was open to having more.

I didn’t know who she was until I read the article.  But this 23-year-old reality TV star said that she almost didn't wake up after the 10 procedures she had in one day.

Montag's procedures included a mini brow lift, Botox, nose job, fat injections in her cheeks and lips, a chin reduction, liposuction to her neck, her ears pinned back, buttocks augmentation, liposuction to her waist and thighs and breast augmentation revision.

Why?  Why would anyone do that?  Montag reports, “I was made fun of when I was younger, and so I had insecurities, (she wants to be liked) especially after I moved to L.A. People said I had a "Jay Leno chin"; they'd circle it on blogs and say nasty things. It bothered me. And when I watched myself on The Hills, my ears would be sticking out like Dumbo! I just wanted to feel more confident and look in the mirror and be like, Whoa! That's me!"

What’s wrong with that picture?  Plastic surgery is a multi-billion dollar industry.  Now don’t get me wrong, it does have its place.  I am thinking birth defects and injuries.  But that’s not where the real money is being spent.

Sometime back I watched an expose on plastic surgery here in Dallas.  This young mom who had had several procedures done herself had brought in her 16 year old daughter to have her nose fixed.  This young lady was a doll.  I’m wondering fix what?  What are you doing, mom?

Do we know who we are?  Our relationship with God is intricately connected to our own self awareness.  The apostle Paul said, we are to put off our old self . . .  and put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

We are challenged in Scripture to shed our old false self and live authentically as our “new true” self.  What is that about?  What does that mean? 

In A.D. 400 Augustine wrote his great work, Confessions.  In it he writes, “How can you draw close to God when you are far from your own self?”  He prayed, “Grant, Lord, that I may know myself that I may know thee.”  What is he saying?  He is asking God to help him to know himself, who he was created to be, his true self, in order that he may know God.

Meister Eckhart, a Dominican writer from the thirteenth century, wrote, “No one can know God who does not first know himself.”

Teresa of Avila wrote in The Way of Perfection: “Almost all problems in the spiritual life stem from a lack of self-knowledge.”

In 1530 John Calvin wrote his great work Institutes of the Christian Religion.  In that work he writes, “Our wisdom . . . consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.  But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other.”

The lack of self-knowledge stifles our understanding of God and therefore our spiritual growth.  May God grant us the eyes to see our true selves that we might then be able to see our true God more clearly.