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What do you know beyond a shadow of a doubt?
Do you know who you are? Can you know who you are? If so, can you tell me with absolute certainly?
Who you think you are may not be who you really are.
Question Reality
Do you accept reality as you see it? Are people basically good? Has anyone ever called you naïve?
Are you ever a little bit curious about another’s motive? If you’ve been betrayed, you might have become doubtful or suspicious. Could others be plotting your demise?
Too much questioning encourages fear. Paranoia is a sickness, but some suspicion might help you sniff out reality.
Think about your two closest neighbors or friends. Could one of them be an alien from another planet? Maybe some people you know are spies from another country, or wolves in sheep’s clothing.
It’s easy for me to question reality. I wonder about some people more than others, and you should too.
Am I being silly or am I being serious? Either way, you’ll never know before it’s too late. Maybe I’m an alien with a plan to take over the world.
Protect Reality
Question what you know to be true to strengthen your convictions. You will have less fear. You will have more assurance and peace.
The people of this world are concerned with protecting their territories:
How can we protect earth from an alien invasion or asteroid collision?
Who should we allow in our country?
Can you trust your neighbor?
Efforts to protect your home are necessarily. But more important than guarding your physical borders is discovering who you really are.
Discover Reality
I’m convinced there is a truer reality beyond what you can see. This truer reality is greater than you can imagine. You can’t see it completely, but it is still knowable. To see it you must search for it with spiritual eyes — the ones connected to your brain AND to your heart.
In C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, four children discover a magic wardrobe that contains a portal into another reality. The adults in their lives see only a plain wardrobe. But those four children, with their childlike innocence, see and enter into the truer reality. They begin an all-immersive adventure, and you can too.
Know Reality
If you believe in God, there are many surprising truths about God’s reality that apply directly to you. Are you an alien from another planet or a child of God? Maybe both, right?
You are more than a stranger to this world. But you are not a bizarre, diabolical alien. God says you are an ambassador. You are from “planet” God and one day you will return to Him.
You are more than a spy. Beneath whatever clothing you wear, are wounds, scars, and weaknesses that you want to keep secret from the rest of the world. But, instead of staying hidden, you seek to be brave enough to come forward as a witness and reveal your true identity.
You might fear you are a wolf because sometimes you behave like one. But in reality, you are a new creation made by God. You are an innocent sheep under God’s care.
Are you hiding your victories, gifts, and strengths from others and even from yourself? Your greatest victories come from your most painful wounds. Your gifts grow out of your scars. You are strong because you are also weak.
If you want to know the reality of who you are, you must look to both your strengths and your weaknesses.
Conclusion
There is a truer reality beyond what you see in front of you. You must seek it out with spiritual eyes. When you do, you can know for sure who you are.
I’m Matt Pavlik. I’m an ambassador who sometimes feels alienated from God, a witness who sometimes hides like a spy, and a sheep who sometimes acts like a wolf. But more than that, I know for sure I am a child of God (John 1:12).
If you’re ready for an adventure and you can see the portal, step through and start discovering who you really are.
Matt Pavlik is a licensed professional clinical counselor who wants to see each individual restored to their true identity. He has more than 20 years of experience counseling individuals and couples at his Christian counseling practice, New Reflections Counseling. Matt and Georgette have been married since 1999 and live with their four children in Centerville, Ohio.
Matt’s courses and books contain practical exercises that help God’s truth spring to life:
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