Part 3: Relinquish The False Self

This is our truest self. We are not defective failures. We are treasured by the Lord of the universe. And this is why we can feel good about ourselves.

The R disciplines of “relinquishment” detach us from the idols that vie for our attention, and attach us to our true identity in Christ. When we recognize and name the idols that consume our energy, time and hearts, we can ask God for the grace to “let go,” relinquishing our dependence on these things. Through practices of relinquishment we detach from striving and unmask the false self with its pretense, attachments, agendas and grandiosities. In the presence of Christ we lay down the weight of having to manage an image. Francis de Sales writes in his Treatise on the Love of God, “No one can perfectly love God unless he gives up his affections for perishable things. . . . Our free will is never so free as when it is a slave to God’s will, just as it is never so servile as when it serves our own will.” Detachment from the false self and idols of our heart can be a painful process. But God’s Spirit of truth longs to help us detach from the lies that shape us. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit bears witness to the truth of our belovedness and our “Christ-in-me identity.” [1] An identity rooted in Christ has a restful center. Surrendering to and maturing in this Christ-in-me identity is helped along by the R disciplines.

“There is no better mirror in which to see your need than the Ten Commandments.” —Martin Luther