Mirror, Mirror on the Wall That’s Not Who I Am At All! or Self-Identification Delusions
The following is a totally politically incorrect blog. If you think you may get offended, don’t read it.
Self-identifying is a total crock! A person cannot change who they are by thinking it!
When you are full grown at five feet, one hundred and twenty pounds, you are not going to be a defensive tackle for the Dawgs. As a person who cannot carry a tune in a bucket, you are not going to be a famous singer! (Oh yeah, I guess that is a possibility. Go for it!) Let me rephrase that. You will not become a famous opera star or a Michael Bublé crooner.
I have self-identified as sophisticated for years. I have spouted my personality label to the point that my family now wisely describes me in that manner. Their accompanying laughter and eyes rolls negate the depiction of their ‘sedate and staid’ mother as sophisticated, but at least the words come out of their mouths. Along with quirky and clueless. But double ding-dang! I am sophisticated! I even looked up the meaning so I could be sure.
Thesaurus.com has wonderful lists of synonyms. I was going for sophisticated to mean refined, citified, enlightened, and cultivated. To my surprise and dismay, sophisticated can also mean mature, disillusioned, bewildering, and Daedalean. Then I had to look that up. Daedalus was an Athenian architect whose projects and ideas went from bad to worse! See, I am sophisticated!
My next self-identification has been total wishful thinking – to be svelte is my ultimate goal in life. All the self-encouragement in the world will not reshape this body nor meet the criteria of graceful, lithe, slender, agile, or nimble. Sadly, my self-description truth fits the antonym list – awkward and fluffy. The Bible does say I will have a new body in heaven. I am asking for skinny and buff.
Which brings me to my self-identification as a Bible scholar. Therein lies my greatest disappointment! I am not as scholarly as I thought! I have been misapplying a verse for years! “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” doesn’t mean what I thought it did.
Taking Proverbs 23:7 out of context has been my oft-quoted mantra to give self-esteem to my kids and to me. When I got to thinking about Biblical justification for the erroneous self-identification idiocy, I had to find a verse to substantiate the phrase. Imagine my surprise when #1 I read the verse in context and #2 studied the Truth of the phrase.
According to gotquestions.org., Proverbs 23 gives advice how to behave in social situations. Verses 6-8 tell of a host who offers food and hospitality but he is resenting your every bite. If you feel he is thinking, “Man, that girl is eating me out of house and home!” he probably is. The admonition is for us to be discerning and act accordingly.
I may not be sophisticated in the good sense or svelte. I have a lot to learn about the Bible. But this I am sure of – God loves me anyway.
Romans 8:38 and 39 KJV
“For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
