Free to Live: The Utter Relief of Holiness by John Eldredge Read Free Book Online Page A

They also had no arch support, looked like a potato sack, and made your feet smell like a sewer in about a week. (My friends who wore Toms said they couldn’t take them off in public settings because of the stench.) But the shoes sure made a statement about your socially conscious consumer choices. Very, very “in.”
    Except—Jesus said when we do our acts of social good, we’re not supposed to let anyone know about them. “But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret.” Hmm. What is really at work here?
    According to Jesus, anyone wanting to pursue a true life, anyone wanting to live with integrity and authenticity, has to be honest about his motives. Anything less is a farce. This is no cause for shame. But it does beg a little humility, and honesty. Our fig leaf is not quite as noble as we thought. I am about to order a pair of shoes online. I know what I like. I also know what my peers would think was cool and, more important, what would invite quite a bit of grief. What’s really influencing me? The scripture says, “The fear of man is a snare.” The fear of man is a terrible motive for the things we choose to say or not say, wear or not wear, the politics we hold, the theology we embrace or reject.
    Let me push a little further into this. How about personality? Most people don’t realize that what we call our personality has some very profound motives behind it.
    Every child is born into this world without a deep and enduring confidence in the goodness of God. That’s part of what we got from Adam and Eve. We are born into this world doubting God—and then things happen. We are wounded. We are disappointed. Shame takes hold. On other occasions, we are rewarded, we are noticed, we fit in. Convictions begin to form within us. When it comes to the wounding and the shame, we say, I know how to make sure that never happens again. I will be shy; I will be friendly; I’ll keep my mouth shut; I’ll be funny all the time. When it comes to getting rewarded, noticed, invited “in,” we say, I know how to make sure that happens, too—I’ll be smart, athletic, pretty, spiritual . On and on it goes. These things are constructed over time, and they operate as what we call our personality, our approach to life. Friends, your personality is designed to accomplish exactly what it’s accomplishing: avoid shame, get a little applause.
    I can be a very driven man; I set very high standards; I push myself hard. There are certain “rewards” that come along with this way of living: I get a lot done, I can be successful. But that drivenness that the world so often rewards is really quite godless. The motive is horrible. It is born from two sources: an early childhood wound of abandonment, and a very early resolution that said, Fine. I’ll go it alone . It’s a combination of woundedness and sin. It looks fine on the outside, but inside, this cup needs a good bit of scrubbing.
    A guy I worked with always loved to pronounce his words very carefully, sometimes using a British pronunciation (though he was from Los Angeles). It had nothing to do with diction; he desperately wanted to be seen as intelligent. Another colleague would always ask, “How are you?” But the truth is, he did it so that you would ask him how he was; he wanted to be asked. A third guy in the office was constantly dropping the ball on his projects; he would say, “I’m just not an organized person.” How convenient—it required everyone else to cover for him. How lovely! You get to live irresponsibly and make others carry the load. Friends, there is always a motive to the way we’re living.
    We say we’re not comfortable in social settings; I want to ask, “And how does that work for you?” Does it allow you to forgo the hard work of learning to relate to other people, to make conversation that engages them? How convenient.
    Take as another example issues of