Session 4 · Galatians 1:10
The Impostor
Whose approval are you chasing, and what is it protecting?
Book reading: Chapter 2 (The Impostor)
Chapter 2 is the book's best-known chapter, the one Manning says drew more comment than all the others in the preface. It introduces the impostor, or false self. In Manning's telling, the impostor blocks closeness with other people and with God, and it is driven by a craving for approval and appearances. The chapter also asks two honest questions: why do we have an impostor at all, and what road leads to healing?
Paul gives us a mirror in Galatians 1:10. Read it: "For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ." Paul is writing a sharp letter, and he asks himself the question out loud. Whose approval is steering me? He is not claiming he never felt the pull. The word "still" suggests he knows what that old pull was like.
Here is the useful part. The impostor and the approval-seeker are the same character. The impostor is whatever version of you the room seems to want. In one room it is the funny one. In another it is the strong one, the spiritual one, the agreeable one. Each mask is built to win approval, and each mask also keeps people from knowing you. That is how it blocks closeness: nobody can love the real you if the real you never shows up.
Manning is candid that his hardest work has been bringing the impostor into Jesus's presence instead of flogging it. Most of us know the flogging approach. We catch ourselves fishing for a compliment or hiding a mistake, and we respond with disgust: I'm such a fake. But disgust is another way of staying in charge. It treats the false self as a problem we must fix rather than something we can hand over.
So try Paul's question in a gentler tone. Not, what is wrong with me? but, what am I protecting, and whose approval am I chasing? Maybe you fear looking unintelligent, or unspiritual, or needy. Try finishing this sentence: "I'm most afraid people will see that I am..." The impostor is usually guarding something tender. When you can name what it protects, you can start to see it more like a frightened guard than an enemy.
Then bring it to Christ, whose servant Paul says he is. A servant of Christ does not have to win the room. Your standing is settled by him, so you can afford to be seen. Say it plainly in prayer: Jesus, here is the mask I wear when I want to be approved. Stay a minute. Don't rush to fix it.
If self-criticism feels relentless, or you fear you are never doing this right, a pastor or counselor can help you carry it.
Key idea
The impostor is the approval-chasing self that protects something tender; the path Manning models is bringing it into Jesus's presence, not beating it up.
Questions to consider
- Whose approval does your impostor most want, and what mask does it wear to get it?
- Manning says his hardest work has been bringing the impostor to Jesus rather than flogging it. What does flogging look like for you, and what might handing it over look like instead?
Journal prompt
Describe your impostor as if it were a person: what does it say, what does it want, what is it afraid of? Then write what you would say to it if Jesus were sitting beside you.
Practice
Minimum dose: 1) Read Galatians 1:10 once and ask Paul's question: whose approval am I seeking today? 2) Write down one moment this week when you wore a mask, and what it protected. 3) Spend two minutes in prayer handing that mask to Jesus, with no self-criticism allowed during those two minutes.