Chapter 6: Becoming Your True Self

Watch how Paul's sentences are built in these four verses. “If then you have been raised with Christ.” Raised is something done to you. “You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Hidden, kept, placed. “When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” Appear, revealed. Nothing here is about you building a self. It is about a life that already exists, is safe, and will one day be shown.

That lines up with a central claim in Benner's chapter on the true self. In his view, the true self is not self-made, and it is not a hidden inner object you uncover by analyzing yourself. It is your whole self as God created you and is redeeming you in Christ, a particular reflection of God meant for you. Identity, Benner says, is always discovered and received, never created. And the way we find it is by seeking God and losing ourselves in him.

Paul's instruction fits that direction of travel. “Seek the things that are above, where Christ is.” You find yourself by looking up and out toward Christ, not by staring inward. This echoes Jesus's own words that whoever loses their life for his sake will find it (Matthew 16:25).

It also quietly answers a worry. If I lose myself in Christ, won't I disappear? Benner argues the opposite: growing in Christlikeness increases individuality rather than erasing it. Scripture gives some support for this. Paul says the Spirit gives varieties of gifts to different people for the common good (1 Corinthians 12:4-7), so being joined to Christ looks like a body of distinct members, not a row of copies. And Revelation 2:17 promises a white stone with a new name known only to the one who receives it. Christ's life is the same; the person it shapes is not.

This cuts against a common idea of “being yourself,” where I design a brand, curate a personality, and defend it. Colossians says the deepest thing about you was not designed by you. You were handed a life, and it is hidden where nothing can reach it.

That also changes how we handle failure and effort. If your life is hidden with Christ, you are not trying to earn a self. You are learning to live from one that has already been given. Some of that will feel like relief. Some of it will feel like grief, as you let go of selves you made for yourself.

Today, practice receiving. Sort what you are carrying into what you made and what you were given.

Start with the parents. They leave Jerusalem supposing Jesus is somewhere in the group. A day's journey later, they begin searching among relatives and acquaintances. They don't find him, so they turn around and go back. Three days pass. Mary will later say they were “searching for you in great distress.” Luke lets the dread sit there.

Now step into the room they finally walk into. There is no spotlight and no stage. He is “sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.” Everyone who hears him is amazed at his understanding and his answers, but notice the order of things: he sits, listens, and asks. Whatever draws wonder grows out of attention, not display.

Then comes the line the whole scene turns on. “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?” Look at that word must. It isn't “I decided,” and it isn't “I'd like to build a platform.” It is the sound of someone who belongs somewhere and can't act otherwise.

Benner reads this scene, along with the wilderness, as Jesus growing in awareness of his identity and his vocation, and he offers it as a model. He links the true self to a calling. Here is what that looks like on the page: Jesus first says whose house he belongs in (“my Father's”), and only then what he must do. Calling grows out of belonging. It begins as a pull, not a performance.

Two quieter details matter. His parents “did not understand the saying that he spoke to them.” Calling can puzzle people who love you. And then he goes home. He “went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them,” while Mary treasured these things in her heart, and he “increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.” The must does not demand an instant launch. It can grow in ordinary soil.

So try a short application. Ask where the must lives in you.

Gifts: what do you do that makes you ask questions, lose track of time, or leave people better off?

Givens: what circumstances did you not choose, such as your family, your place, your body, or this season of life?

Where gifts and givens overlap with a pull you can't quite shake, that may be where your calling is beginning. It will probably start small and may not impress anyone. Jesus's started with listening.