Discovering Our True Selves

The Gospel Coalition recently published a collection of twelve mini-bio­graphies of Christians who share their experience meeting Jesus and following him along his counterintuitive path:  unless we lose our lives for his sake, we’ll never discover our true selves.  “Writers from around the world tell their stories of healing and hope amid many hardships.”  They also unpack God’s Word and help us see what it looks like to take God seriously when life goes sideways.

The book is Lost and Found:  How Jesus Helped Us Discover Our True Selves, edited by Collin Hansen (151 pages).  Read it as you reexamine your expec­tations of the Christian life.  Read it to grow in your faith.

• Collin Hansen reveals his struggle “learning to adult,” and he exposes the dangers of good times.
• Joni Eareckson Tada lists many great gains found through loss.  “Does God miraculously heal?  Sure, he does.  But in this broken world, it’s still the exception, not the rule.”
• Sam Allberry shows how Jesus can’t fit into your back pocket.  “Jesus first or self first.  We embrace him or we don’t.  What we can’t do is have some of him.”
• Vaneetha Risner tells how trials have refined her character, taken away her fear of the future, given her a deeper purpose (includ­ing caring others who suffer), and brought her close to Jesus.
• Quina Aragon shares how God graciously dashed her expecta­tions of success and greatness, undoing her sinful pride.
• Christopher Yuan relays the story of God’s severe mercy and fatherly love to bring a prodigal son from prison to home.
• Chris Castaldo shares about leaving his family’s nominal church tradition, and how God opened the eyes of this lost man’s heart.
• Aixa de López takes us on her journey of wrenching, wonderful, soul-forming refinement as an adoptive parent of an orphan son.
• Jeff Robinson conveys what it was like to be jarred awake by Jesus after long years of spiritual sloth.
• Jason Cook tells how God rescued him from the lies of the “prosperity gospel” and from the need for man’s applause.
• Sam Chan questions the popular mantra, “Do whatever makes you happy.”  He then asks:  With all this advice to be happy, why are we so anxious, stressed, and depressed?
• Bernard Howard asserts, “While following Jesus can mean losing biological family members, it also means finding a family with an eternal bond.”

These twelve short stories of being lost and found provide insight on the way forward for those who don’t know Christ, and they offer spiritual encouragement for believers as well.  “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).

To learn more about what it means to turn to Jesus Christ in faith and receive his gift of eternal life, read his story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32).  And see here for more info.