Its a picture of captivity. Why don’t I guard my soul as vehemently as I guard my body? Perhaps its because I just don’t know how valuable my soul is.

When Scriptures speak of Jonathan’s love for David the prophet, it says, “the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul” (1 Samuel 18:1).

So what does it really mean to love your own soul?

“Know O beautiful soul that you are the image of God, know that you are the glory of God, know then, O man, your greatness and be vigilant.” -St Ambrose of Milan

Sometimes we are blinded from this very greatness that St. Ambrose speaks of. We feel so human, in every broken kind of way. Our memory fades from the calling to which we received. We have unlearnt that we are made for greatness, by Greatness. Our minds haven’t quite descended into the depths of our hearts to know these truths.

“The more we get what we now call ‘ourselves’ out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become.” -C.S Lewis

If only we knew of the way God looks at you and me. It’s in the same way He looked at a shepherd boy—David—and saw in him a king. Each of us is in the process of becoming. Becoming beauty out of the ashes. Living in the dirt of our own sin, but destined to be butterflies. Perhaps living the resurrection just means being yourself, in the fullest way. Dark but lovely. No matter how dark we are, “God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29). Not even an inch of darkness can out shadow the shine of your lovely.

“Like Michelangelo who looked at a rough, shapeless stone one day and saw a statue of David in it, Jesus was constantly looking at people in terms of what they can become. We may be defeated, degraded, soiled, enslaved by our pas­sions, yet through Christ we can be redeemed.”  -Anthony Coniaris

It’s in this knowing that we learn to guard our souls zealously. We learn to build the walls of Jerusalem because we know that deep inside there is treasure.

So, brush off the dirt and be ready to receive the promise of the Father.

“For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise.” Hebrews 10:36

The promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit, will bring to your remembrance all things. Remembrance of who you really are. We were made for worship, and every moment in our lives we are bowing down to something, so if in those moments we don’t see God, we are worshipping an idol. So allow Him to bring us prostrate before the throne of grace – let Him point us back home, back to where we belong.

“He is the source of holiness an intellectual light for every rational power’s discovery of truth, supplying clarity, so to say through himself. He is inaccessible in nature but approachable in goodness. He fills all things with power but only those who are worthy participate in him. He is not participated in all at once but shares his energy in ‘proportion to faith”. He is simple in substance but manifold in powers. He is present as a whole to each and wholly present everywhere. He is proportioned out impassibly and participated in as a whole. He is like a sunbeam whose grace is present to one who enjoys him as if he was present to such a one alone.” -On the Holy Spirit , St Basil the Great.

(Picture courtesy of Chartchai Yodsin)

It is then, as appears, the greatest of all lessons to know one’s self. For if one knows himself, he will know God; and knowing God, he will be made like God

-St. Clement of Alexandria

It is of immense value to know yourself:

If you know your strengths you can focus on those areas and achieve extraordinary things.

In a similar way, if you know your weaknesses you can find ways to compensate for those areas like partnering with different people possessing the strengths that you lack.

This is all relatively straightforward, but the question then becomes how does one truly come to know oneself?

Drum roll please…

The answer isn’t as earth shattering as you might expect.

You come to know yourself in the same way you learn about anything else – through investigation and focused study.

There are several personality tests that you may or may not have heard of that I have found to be incredibly valuable in the study of yourself. Below I describe a few of them, give some starting points, and provide some resources so that you can begin your research!

Myers-Brigg Personality Test

Many of you are already aware of the Myers-Brigg Personality Types as they are referenced the most. The theory boils down to the following:

There are four possible pairs of personality traits:

-Introversion (I) or Extraversion (E)
-Intuition (N) or Sensing (S)
-Thinking (T) or Feeling (F)
-Judging (J) or Perceiving (P)

Every person leans, to a slight or extreme degree, to one side in each pair; this results in 16 possible personality profiles. A lot of people are surprised at how accurately their profile describes them as this test has helped many to see why they think and behave in certain ways. This personality test is so widely used that some people use it to find careers that they would be a good fit for or even life long partners that they are compatible with.

Take the test for free here! Once you know what you are you can just type those four letters into google and learn a variety of things about yourself.

(I’m an INFP)

There are also entire webpages dedicated to explaining the different Myers-Brigg personality types. The following videos are some of the best I’ve found as they take an in-depth look at each type. It’s definitely worth the 10 minutes it’ll take to watch the video focusing on your personal type:

There are also forums where people with the same personality type go, ask each other questions and support one another. If you go to https://www.reddit.com/r/xxxx (type in the four letters that represent your personality type in place of the xxxx) you can see one such online community for yourself. You can learn what motivates, scares, exhausts, or makes each personality type feel better. You can even see how to grow rapidly based on your type. When it comes to the Myers-Brigg personality types, resources are pretty endless.

The DiSC Assessment

The DiSC assessment is another test designed to predict how people are likely to act; it is another tool you can use to learn more about yourself. The basic premise is that there are four behavioral groups people fall into: Dominant, Influential, Steady, and Compliant.

Most people can be described using one or a mixture of two of the categories. You can take the test for free here!

Also, below you can download a really good infographic taken from Eastern Nazarene College that goes into a lot of detail about the different behavior groups. (Be sure to zoom in to see it properly!)

StrengthsFinder Test

There are several other less well-known tests out there that will give you a deeper understanding of what you’re naturally good at, your unique disposition, and why you think and act the way you do… you just have to look for them. After I bought, Living Your Strengths: Discover Your God-Given Talents and Inspire Your Community, I received an access code to take a StrengthFinders Test. Out of the 34 themes, it reported my top 5 (with my strongest at the top of the list):

1. Input (I have a craving to know more; like to collect and archive all kinds of information)
2. Intellection (I am introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions)
3. Focus (I can take directions, follow through, and make the corrections necessary to stay on track)
4. Learner (I am constantly growing as I I feed my desire to learn all that I can)
5. Restorative (I adept at dealing with problems and good at fixing things that go wrong)

This taught me a lot about myself and revealed to me why I behave in certain ways. The book goes into a lot more detail about the 34 themes. Unfortunately, the test is not free as you either have to buy the book (and receive an access code to take the test) or buy the test on it’s own here. If you don’t want to pay for the test it’s worth looking through the list of themes to see what you think are your top strengths. You might know yourself better than you think.

Not only can we use these tools to learn more about ourselves, but we can use them to understand and appreciate the differences between us and the people in our lives. As we come to understand that there is no ‘right way’ and just different ways of communicating and approaching things we come to value others for the unique perspectives, insights, and abilities they bring to the table. This allows us to grow to see our lives in the context of the people and community we belong to.

So let’s start learning about ourselves!

After looking through these materials, what have you learned about yourself from your research? Let us know below!

(Photo by Alex Zhu)

Fragments of the tangible material, gently held in the beauty of the communal, stitched into the mystery of the Ethereal.

This is the anatomy of living; the inner workings of who we are.

We are more than dust and bones.

We are the imago dei, the image of the Divine.

But often life makes dry bones of us; we live as divided humans, one foot in the secular, another in the sacred. We fight to resist the intersect, and our lives become an internal struggle. We exist but are not alive.

Yet, to these dry bones He cries,

Live

Live

Live

For mere dry bones cannot bear the glory of God.

“The glory of God is a human being fully alive.”
– St Iraneus

Collectively Pursuing Wholeness

To be fully alive is to live in awe of the exquisite oneness that all of life is sacred. It is to thrive in the wonder of existence and tread knowing we walk on sacred grounds. It is to reject the notion that anything pertaining to “God” is more “spiritual” than romance, money, art, or any aspect of human life. We are made of material: “the matter from which a thing is or can be made, being of a physical or worldly nature.” Yet we are often stricken by guilt over our desire for the material, as if that desire defiles our godliness. With heads bowed in shame, we wrongly call for a division between all that is material and all that is godly. And in all this we disregard the truth that sacredness lies within the material. It is disguised within the everyday pedestrian life; it is in our houses, at our dinner tables, in our daily work, and in life’s adventures and travel pursuits.

Unashamedly Enjoying Beauty

To be fully alive is to live radically for the beauty in each other and in our own heart. It is embracing the sacredness of pulling off our masks to let our own stories swirl and unravel, allowing them to mingle with the stories of others – stories worth telling, stories worth pursuing. We are made for a communal life: “participated in, shared, or used in common by members of a group or community.” We are persons made for communion, made to struggle daily to show up and cultivate connection with each other. In our communion we are united by the brokenness that makes us one, so that in communion we say ‘yes’ to authenticity and vulnerability. There is sacredness in mindfully practicing hospitality of the heart, of inviting others into a safe, warm space where they can discover their true value and worth. Within the communal we celebrate one another, as lanterns that, only together, will brilliantly outshine the darkness.

Purposely Becoming Like Him

In the torn fragments of the communal and material, the thread that binds these pieces of clay together is the ethereal: “extremely delicate and light in a way that seems too perfect for this world; heavenly, spiritual.” We are a weak and fragile jar of clay, but still He chooses to set His treasure in this moldable vessel. We desire to respond to this call to live as His earthen vessel by seeking the treasure God has hidden for us in the day, to have eyes that see and ears that hear. We desire the eyes of faith that perceive the face of God in a stranger’s kindness, in the abused and the abuser. We desire the ears of faith that hear the voice of God in the sound of falling snow and the flutter of a bird’s wings.

Wrapped in our tale, we journey on into the inner universe of our heart. It is only there do we journey out of time and out of place, into eternity. Into the tale of its unfathomable depths, its caverns of dragons and lions, its secret locked doors, and its uneven rough paths to the entrance of our inner temple, the entrance to Love. Here is where Christ the King comes to take His rest, walking within, dwelling in and placing His Kingdom there. The inner kingdom present within is at the same time the Kingdom of the age to come. The place where we experience the love of God, which heals our every affliction, heals blind eyes to truly see the gates of heaven everywhere. To know His love is to know His face. To be fully alive is to live coram deo, before the face of God. In the communal and in the material, all faces are His.

We behold His face to become like Him.

This is the anatomy of living.

I can do all things through him who strengthens me..
Philippians 4:13

For the majority of my life I have done whatever I wanted to do. I was always the one in charge, doing whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. I would block out that voice in my mind telling me ‘no’ and amplify my behaviour until that voice diminished to an eventual silence. I was comfortable with this lifestyle. I was happy doing what I felt brought me happiness. I didn’t want to change anything about this lifestyle as I thought it was perfect for me. I was ‘happy’ in my daily routine knowing what I’d be doing that day and who I would be seeing.

This comfortable life soon turned into an unfulfilled and unsatisfactory routine. I was living the same way but it felt different. I was no longer satisfied and content with anything. That voice that I had always shunned into a silence was louder than ever and I couldn’t escape it. I was scared. I didn’t want to leave the life I had always known and was so comfortable with, but I knew it was now or never.

My comfort zone break-out had begun. One thing God blessed me with that helped me on this journey was surrounding me with (truly great) people that were an amazing support and encouragement for me. I had seen my brother completely change his life for the better and he badly wanted the same for me. He was the first hand guiding me in this new journey and always pushing me get out of my old, comfortable routine. Before I knew it my daily routine was changing and I was starting to notice how much my life was changing too. I was being introduced to new people and became part of a new community that were bringing me closer to God. This was really helping me let go of old habits.

Admittedly, part of me wasn’t ready to take the huge leap back into my own Coptic church community. I was anxious and nervous of going back to the church I had tried escaping for so long. I didn’t want to face people that I had tried to avoid for so many years of my life and I was scared of rejection and disappointment. God, however, had a different plan for me. He continually sent me people that I could rely on and feel comfort around. These people encouraged me to take that dreaded leap and go on my first ever church conference, which was exactly a year ago now. He taught me to rely on Him and to trust His plan more than my own. I learnt how to really communicate with Him and more importantly how to listen to Him. He started to change my life in so many ways that I couldn’t have done on my own.

The main piece of advice I would give anyone wanting to take that step further in his or her spiritual journey, but is held back by fear of stepping out of what they feel is their comfort zone, is to remember you’re never on this journey alone. “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9.

Here are some steps that will help;

Step 1:

Talk to God, He knows all that your heart desires and will give you the strength and courage to fulfill all the things you couldn’t do alone.

Step 2:

Remind yourself that there will never be the ‘perfect’ time to take this brave leap and push yourself out of your comfort zone. God’s planning and timing is so perfect that we could never remotely match his plans for us. In 2 Peter 3:8 we read that “With the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day”. He is a patient and loving God and will wait for us until we allow Him to make us ready to find his promise.

Step 3:

Accept his eternal love for you. He watches over you through your most sinful and corrupt days, not with anger and disgrace, but with compassion and love and will provide you with his free gift of grace.

Step 4:

Obey his word. We are rewarded with salvation when we truly turn to Christ and fulfill His Word. Give Him an inch and He will give you a mile.

Step 5:

Trust Him with the things that scare you the most and He will provide you with bravery and strength you never thought you had.

By turning to God and surrendering my life to Him, he has given me endless rewards and blessings that I thank Him for everyday. He has provided with an amazing group of friends that encourage me on this new journey and fill my life with so much joy. The life I was once so comfortable in is now a faded memory, and all the past fear and anxiety God has now turned into excitement to see when He is going to take me next.

“For we walk by faith, not by sight”
2 Corinthians 5:7

Because one look in the mirror and I see that I’m not like her. One look and I see an image far from the standard my mind hopes to perceive, far from my own standard of holiness that I’ve conceived. One look and all I see is countless failures and skin too marred to be pure.

And I circle around this mirror, day after day, with my perfectly marked measuring line to measure just how far I am from where I would have myself be. But time does not befriend me, only increasing the distance between my current state and my goal. And as time passes, the deeper I am pierced.

But the truth I evade to recognise is that who I am, my personality, is a gift. A gift to be cherished, to be explored, to be celebrated, to be rejoiced in and purified in the flame of His Spirit.

We all possess this gift. And a gift from the Giver demands that we stop condemning or belittling it, and allow Him to renew it within us so that we may use it for His Kingdom.

We may not be the quietest or the most gentle. We may like to laugh and shout loud. We may possess a feisty spirit or are radical in the way we live. But each character trait is a gift. We often equate spirituality with someone who is quiet and restrained, and so if our personality is contrary to this, we condemn who we are, determining our insufficiency.

“For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them..”
Romans 12:4-6

Mark this truth; He never created any one of us the same. And upon each of us He lavishes different gifts, different personalities. So we must accept the gift offered to us, that we may grow to learn how we can utilize it for His glory and how we can use it to minister grace to others, for these gifts He will use to save many people in this world. Because the whole world is not quiet and restrained, many in the world are loud and fiesty and radical. Our personality qualifies us to be weak to those who are weak.

To believe we are made in His image, is to believe that we are displaying who He is, even when I’m loud, even when I’m laughing so much I cannot breath. Let the quiet display His quietness; let me display His enthusiasm and radical love!

Plagued with this pride that labors for people to recognize us as spiritual, as holy people for the Lord, may we skin our knees pleading for His grace to destroy this wall of pride. Let us allow ourselves just to be. Just to be who He made us to be. Just to be the gifts He bestowed upon us. That we may purify our motives and intentions that they may become unadulterated and point solely towards Him.

I observed a man. How he held nothing back from his personality, how he was loud and audacious and spoke with words attracting great laughter. How he never tried to be quiet or reserved or anything that he wasn’t, instead he was completely himself. And in the wholeness of himself, he was Christ. In that acceptance of himself, I saw Christ.

Thus, one look in the mirror reflects only the mere flesh of myself, but one look into Christ to see my own reflection, is to see me whole, to see my real self, myself through His eyes. Where my imperfections are eclipsed by glory in the light of His eyes. Where He rejoices over me with singing and delights in my beauty. For in His eyes I am accepted. In His eyes I am known, in His eyes I am deeply respected, for all that I am.

“Being free, each human being realises the divine human image within himself in his own distinctive fashion.”
– Bishop Kallistos Ware

“Never alter yourself to satisfy others” I hear you say to all your friends; “be yourself!” you preach. Really? You really want to go there Michael? The intention of this letter isn’t to break you, but build you. Wake up! I want to see you grow into the man you know that you’re called to be.

There is only One who knows you even better than I do – but I know you pretty darn well. You’re so bruised, so broken and insecure, so empty and fragile. The bullying of your past and the disgusting sins you’ve allowed to consume your life have poisoned your life. You’re so fake, so so fake my friend. If only you could see it… if only you’d allow yourself to look to the One who can show you a true reflection of who you currently are and who you were created to be.

Day and night you remember the bullying and nasty remarks said to you all through primary and secondary school. Yes, you had every right to be hurt but how foolish were your follow-up actions Michael? You’ve built walls after walls around yourself, attempting every possible way to mask the hurt you feel. You keep running from your list of insecurities that’s getting larger and larger. You’re so afraid of rejection that you’ve built multiple personas that perfectly fit all the boxed categories of your life; the funny-never-serious Michael vs the ‘deep’-serious-advice-giver Michael. The loud Michael overcompensating for the humour that you feel you lack vs the quiet and contemplative Michael that’s so foreign to people because they only get to see him when you’re seriously hurt. Every time you see an attribute you admire in someone, you copy and paste. A new identity. A new Michael added to the list. Another way to gain popularity and approval. You’ve completely convinced yourself that your worth comes only through the way you dress and your hairstyles – after all, that’s what you’re always getting complimented on right?

But thank God you’re not like these ‘terrible sinners’ around you at church that club and drink; you’re a passionate servant of the Lord – holy and righteous…and you make sure everyone sees it. You live for the moment when your deacon voice will be noticed, ask the most intellectual questions at youth meeting because that’s how you view spirituality and have an opinion about every political aspect in the church. At school it’s even harder – you have to work extra hard for that attention! You’re speaking vulgar words that you’d never imagined yourself to say. You publically proclaim yourself as ‘Coptic Orthodox Christian’ when you have no idea what Orthodoxy’s about. You run after gossip; you crave it – what else can you possibly talk about? Any other topic will show how boring you believe you really are.

You feed off people’s attention and compliments; everyday you run after your own glory and thirst for people’s approval. Stop, please stop! Don’t you see this life of absolute hypocrisy that you’re living? Can’t you feel the void in your heart?! Michael, all you’re running after, all you desire, everything you’ve ever wanted to be, every insecurity you’ve wanted to eradicate is found in JESUS. It’s Jesus that gives freedom. In His freedom you’ll find your identity – who you’re called to be! And oh Michael, if only you’d allow Him to share with you some of His plans for you…. if only you’d allow Him to start healing you…. if only you’d look to His everything instead of your nothing. Michael there’s something that I’m about to share with you that will change your life forever, one word that will literally turn your world upside down: GRACE. Yes, grace! God loves you forever Michael, He loves you as much as He loves St. Mary, St. Abanoub and the Pope – NO LESS, He’s madly in love with you while you’re committing your ugliest filthiest sin! You. Are. Loved. Unconditionally.

I want to let you know that one day you’ll look up to Heaven and for the first time you’ll be honest before God, openly telling Him your fear of people, of the future, of Him.. and oh Michael I can’t begin to explain to you how you’ll be transformed right there and then in that moment with your Saviour. Healing will finally begin! The Holy Spirit will flood your heart; a consuming fire will literally burn within you. He WILL give you peace. He WILL give you confidence. He WILL give you the identity you’ve been running after your entire life. At last you will begin to live.

Now blameless, He calls you holy; you’ve been forgiven,
He calls you righteous and free.

Now spotless, He calls you worthy; you are His child,
He calls you chosen, you are His.

Dear younger me, you were never meant to carry this beyond the cross.

Every mountain, every valley, through each heartache you will see,
that in every moment Jesus brings you closer to who you were meant to be.

Love,
Michael

“She said to her mistress, “if only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria!
He would cure him of his leprosy.”
2 Kings 5:3

…not because it was a phenomenal movie (although I can say that it was really well put together) but because of the profound significance that it had to me personally.

Have you ever had a moment where you deeply identified with a character in a story, whether presented in the form of a movie, play, or even book? Well that’s what happened with me and The Great Gatsby.

The narrator of the story, Nick Carraway, introduces his friend Gatsby as “…the single most hopeful person I’ve ever met, and am ever likely to meet again”

As he comes to know Gatsby more and more he sees clearer and clearer “Gatsby’s extraordinary gift for hope… a gift that I have never found in any other person”

The story, at its core, revolves around an elaborate mirage Gatsby has concocted in his mind and has come to believe wholeheartedly. He hopes without any reservation; he dreams no matter how seemingly unrealistic… that the love of his life, Daisy Buchanan (who is now married to another man), will come back to him. Even more absurd is his persistence that they are to start their relationship right where they left off four years ago as if nothing had happened in the meantime.

[Gatsby] wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was.

I liken his mental state to the verse in Romans 4:18 referring to the faith of Abraham “who, contrary to hope, in hope believed”

But there is one major difference.

Gatsby hoped in a situation, a person, an idea –  we are supposed to hope in GOD!

Too many of us (myself included) are so easily occupied in having faith in the wrong thing… things that perish, that don’t satisfy, that don’t sustain…

We believe the lies of the enemy telling us that we would be better off if we only had [this] relationship, [this] amount of money, [this] car, health, power.. whatever it may be.

What Is Hope?

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)

Hope feeds faith. Put another way, the faith you have in something comes from the amount of hope you put into that thing. The more you hope for health, wealth, and whatever else.. the more you believe [or have faith] that those things will satisfy, sustain, and ultimately save you. See the problem?

It completely shifts our focus from hoping and having faith in God

Have you ever hoped for something and then reached that goal? What happened? I bet you thought to yourself, “Is this all there is? I thought there was more to it than this…”

That’s because we hope and have faith in the wrong thing too long that we fool ourselves into believing that if we only get [insert blank here] we will have it made. Hebrews 3 mentions the “the deceitfulness of sin” and in my opinion there is no better adjective to describe it.

Gatsby’s story portrays this brilliantly:

“Gatsby himself didn’t believe [her call] would come, and perhaps he no longer cared. If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about….”

Hoping for other things besides God always leaves you wanting more. You go from one level of achievement to the next never finding satisfaction – never finding true fulfillment

What Should We Hope In?

Psalm 42 exclaims:

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.

What a beautiful passage! Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him. God is the one we should trust to save us from whatever situation. God is the one we should focus on. God should be our God and nothing and no one should take his place.

Here are a couple more passages:

Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord their God. (Psalm 146:5)

But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him,
on those whose hope is in his unfailing love (Psalm 33:18)

No one who hopes in You will ever be put to shame (Psalm 25:3)

My prayer is simple:
Lord teach us how to HOPE IN YOU ALONE!!!