Last night, I had one of those sleepless nights for awhile. I was staying up in bed unintentionally, but my mind was going full steam and not reaching any stopping points. Sometimes, it’s quite difficult to be in such a position where one can easily obsess and fixate on things.
I started thinking about things in my own life. I realized that my identity cannot come from within. It has to come from without. I cannot tell me what I am. Only God can give me my identity and maybe this is why other people are able to see it so much better than myself. It is because they do not have the clay I have.
What do I mean by that? I believe it is in the Socratic dialogue of Theaetetus that Socrates compares our knowledge perceptions to clay in our souls. I’d like to take that and show how I think we take in messages of ourselves. I’d like to suggest that our souls contain message boards that get responses.
There are some messages we receive and internalize over time that get written on the tablets. Now this doesn’t mean that they are verbally said. They probably rarely are. However, certain events come and take place in our lives and we draw beliefs about the world and ourselves based on those events.
Why are we the least likely to believe the good things our friends and loved ones tell us about ourselves? It is because they do not carry around the tablet. They do not have that message that has been so long engraved that it seems hard to deny. We must open ourselves up to those who love us truly though for they could see us in true ways we cannot.
We must also be open to what God says about us. If we believed what he said, we would be unstoppable. I was walking at work tonight and someone with a table set up asked a worker there, “Is that guy as much trouble as he looks like?” Now he’d been joking with me earlier so I knew how to take it.
However, as I thought about it I realized I could go back and knowing I bear the image say “You have no idea how much trouble I can be.” Why? Because I do bear the image and I can make a difference. When you let someone into your world, they will change it in some way. Realizing you are in the image means you realize how much you can change things.
I wish this process was easier, but it isn’t. I looked back over the years and saw many sad messages I’ve internalized about myself. I try now to replace the false ones with truth. It is not done overnight. I think anyone who has really done this at all knows exactly what I am talking about. I have much negativity to overcome, but by the grace of God it can certainly be done.
I urge you to look at that tablet also. What true messages do you have? What false ones do you have? Look and see and pray for healing of that which is false. Listen to your friends and loved ones that don’t carry around the tablet. Maybe they’re trying to inscribe the truth on it if you’ll be more open.
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