1 samuel on The False Self

Impostors draw their identity not only from achievements but from interpersonal relationships. They want to stand well with people of prominence because that enhances a person’s résumé and sense of se...

At some point in childhood we all make the powerful discovery that we can manipulate the truth about ourselves.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.

George Herbert Mead, an influential early 20th-century sociologist, coined the term “generalized other” to describe the vague group we consider when shaping our actions. How often do we behave a certa...

The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.

We readily confess our little faults in order to suggest that we have no big ones.

Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes.

William James, in a famous letter to H. G. Wells in 1906, credited what he called American “moral flabbiness” to “the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess Success. That—with the squalid cash interpr...

I think the most selfish, self-centered individual in this world is not an unsaved person. It's a Christian who accepts the salvation God offers freely and goes out and lives for himself.

Be less concerned with what you have than with what you are.

Syndrome (formerly called Incrediboy) in the film The lncredibles is one example of envy’s futility and the envier’s inferiority, which together secure the inevitable lack of success in besting one’s ...

Though beauty gives you a weird sense of entitlement, it's rather frightening and threatening to have others ascribe such importance to something you know you're just renting for a while.

Have you ever noticed that we often see ourselves, specifically our bodies, our facial features differently? In 2013 the soap company Dove decided to explore this phenomenon by hiring an FBI-trained f...

It’s difficult for people to love the real you when you are covering up who you really are. We connect with others when we take our mask off and let others in.

The Hebrew word for “fool” is very close to the Hebrew for “noble,” with only one letter different, and it is sometimes only in the outcome of their lives that the people considered noble by the peopl...

The first step in backsliding is to put one's service for Christ ahead of one's love for Christ.

Sometimes we have to “step over” our anger, our jealousy, or our feelings of rejection and move on. The temptation is to get stuck in our negative emotions, poking around in them as if we belong there...

A young boy was heard talking to himself as he wandered through his backyard, sporting a full baseball uniform, jersey and cap included, as well as a ball and bat. "I'm the best hitter in the...

For those of us who live in the shadow of self-doubt, who may wonder what meaning a life of relative anonymity may have in a society filled with the cult of celebrity in which likes, reposts, and digi...

In stark contrast to ourselves, when Jesus needed to know who he was, he listened to his Father’s voice, trusted that voice and claimed its truth for his own life.

The saints of the church flicker like candles along a dark corridor. They are not 1400-watt LED floodlights to blind you with their brilliance; those are the celebrities. A celebrity is a flashbulb st...

I lust after recognition, I am desperate to win all the little merit badges and trinkets of my profession, and I am of less real use in this world than any good cleaning lady.

Two decades after I worked with the airmen, I read a fascinating article, “The Quasimodo Complex,” in The British Journal of Plastic Surgery, Two physicians reported in 1967 on a landmark study of e...

The Great Wall of China was an immense and costly project, built with tremendous effort and resources, designed to provide security and protection. Yet, within a few years of its completion, it was br...

In her book, Grace for the Good Girl , Emily P. Freeman charts her early years growing up in the church believing in grace but living according to the rules of perfection. One thing that would, a...

The Missing “Advent” Text A lectionary preacher moving from the fifth to the sixth Sunday after Pentecost in Year A will notice that a familiar chunk is missing, sent back in time to the third Sunday...

[God’s grace is] always hidden under the strangest appearances.

Author David Seamands once wrote, “Children are the best recorders but the worst interpreters.” I remember a lot about being a kid. I remember colors and moments, arguments and smells… Though my me...

We cannot be true Christians without being original. Nothing gives us personality like prayer. Nothing makes man so original. To be creative, we must live with the Creator. Prayer places man in direct...

In The Lord of the Rings, Denethor is a steward of Gondor, the great kingdom of men. He comes from a long line of stewards who have ruled Gondor as temporary lords while the kingdom waited for the n...