Searching For Identity

All right, one of the questions that we get, you don't even know what I'm going to say. Nope, I have no idea. Often from people.

I've heard this, it has to be a thousand times in three decades. What's it like working with pro athletes? Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson.

And I'm Dave Wilson, and you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. You know, you sort of have this idea that because they've made it, in a sense, financially, they're at the top of the top of the top of their career in in what they do. They're young, they're beautiful, they must be so happy and fulfilled. Yeah, and they're still on a search.

And they would be the first to tell you, yeah, I don't think this is it. Yeah. And the thing is what they've experienced, I think we've all experienced. And so we need somebody to help us answer.

Why is our search unending? And we've got Trevin Wax with us today who's written a book. Right, Trevin? That's right. And your book's the answer. Well, I think my book points to the answer.

Well, Trevin. Jesus is the answer. Welcome to Family Life Today. Thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here. And so Trevin's book is called Rethink Yourself, The Power of Looking Up Before Looking In. And before we dive into that, I'll let the listeners know, and you can add anything you want to this amazing bio. But just reading off the book cover, you've been LifeWay. Well, tell us what you've done at LifeWay for how many years?

Yep. So I've been at LifeWay for a little more than 10 years now and was brought on to help create a curriculum called The Gospel Project, which is a chronological journey through the Bible showing how all of the scriptures point to Jesus for groups from kids to students and adults. And then I've also been able to be at LifeWay to help with the launch of the Christian Standard Bible, a translation that is faithful to the original languages, very accessible in today's English.

And so those have been my two primary tasks. But I get to write and to teach and to do lots of other things as well. Where are you teaching? I'm a visiting professor at Wheaton College. So every now and then I get to go up to do an intensive with students there. That's fun.

I just love getting to meet people from across the country. And you're married. You have three kids. That's right. And you have a son that's getting ready to launch.

That's right. He's a junior in high school. So we're doing those ACT tests, visiting colleges, starting to ask all those questions. And I'm interested. I think it'll be interesting as we keep diving into this conversation. I'm sure you've had these conversations with your kids.

Oh, sure. And where are they finding their happiness and where does true life and joy come from? So this will be a good discussion. So let's talk about, you know, the culture and I mean, whether it was our culture back in the day, I'm not going to say how long ago that was or today, there's sort of a search that we all go on to find life, to find joy, to find happiness, find purpose. Right.

And Dave, I don't think it's cultural or even how old we are or where we are in life. We've all faced the problem that our circumstances tend to determine our happiness. That's right. And we've all learned that we don't always have great circumstances. And so the question is also where do we find our happiness?

Yeah. You call the book Rethink Yourself. So what's that mean? Well what I'm trying to do with this book is to help at least at the start to open a conversation with people who may never have actually examined the way they think about life, the way they think about their purpose. So much of our life choices are made according to the common sense of the culture, the common sense that we hear in movies and books and television shows and inspirational speeches and just things about what it means to be human, what it means to be, to seek fulfillment and satisfaction. But things that we never really examine or that we never put to the test.

And so what I'm trying to do is to, at least at the start of the book, is to say, what if we actually put ourselves on the examining table, so to speak, and look at our lives and to ask questions. What are the things that I've assumed to be true about the way the world works and about what it means to look for happiness? What are these things that I assume to be true just because everybody else does? And that's just the thing I've always grown up or the thing I've always heard versus what actually does scripture say or what is actually the true answer that may in some ways correspond with this common sense, but may in others be radically different. One of the things that hit me when you said that is we accept the cultural voices in our head.

I mean, I'm thinking of graduation speeches. I was an athlete. I'm thinking of every coach telling me I can do it. And never did I step back and go, is that true? So why don't we even challenge it?

Well, I mean, I think part of it is we don't live in a society that's going to push us toward reflection very often. We can be perpetually distracted, can we not? More so than ever. Oh yeah.

Yeah. Because we're all connected online 24 hours a day. And we could be perpetually entertained. I just saw, I was reading an article yesterday actually about the percentage of young people who watch Netflix on 1.5 or two times speed.

Well, they're like, yeah, you can do twice as many episodes in a time. I thought, wow, that's a thing. It's a thing. So we do live in this perpetual entertainment distraction. So I think that's one reason we don't do a whole lot of reflection. We just don't have time for it. We have our days with so many other things. But the other reason we don't is just because the slogans and the, the sort of pithy phrases that have so captured our imaginations, like be true to yourself, follow your heart, chase your dreams. You know, you do you, no matter what anyone else says, be yourself, all of those kinds of phrases and things that you do here. Like you said, the graduation speeches and other inspirational talks or in movies, television shows and things like that.

It's just so prevalent that I think most people wouldn't even think to question that. Well, I was going to say, some people heard you list those off and they thought, well, yeah, those are good. Sure. Those are great. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I thought every one of those I sort of lived by my whole life, I gotta be honest, as I heard you say them now, I question every one because I'm old enough to have done some self-reflection.

You don't have to be old to do this by the way. But that cultural mindset is so prevalent. Tell them what happened at lunch today.

I mean, it's everywhere, right? It's sort of funny what happened. We're sitting at lunch and having chocolates and what happened? So at the end of the lunch, wonderful BLT sandwich from here locally, I picked up one of these dove chocolates and I undid the wrapper. And on the inside of these dove chocolates, they have these slice quotes from people from just random people from across the country. And mine happened to be a quote that said, be fearlessly authentic from someone in New Jersey. So I looked at it and I immediately felt, well, this is relevant. This is exactly what we're talking about today. Now is there anything wrong with that?

What is going on with that message? So here's the thing, when it comes to authenticity, there's two ways of understanding that word authentic and that's a good word. When we're speaking about the difference between authenticity and hypocrisy, well, surely we should all want to be authentic, right?

Jesus had a lot to say about hypocrites, people who were inauthentic, meaning they said one thing and they lived another way. But for most people in our society today, authenticity means getting in touch with your inner self as you define yourself and then being true to that no matter what, as opposed to conforming to someone else's vision for your life, whether it be the previous generation's vision, whether it be your religious affiliation, whether it be your family's vision for your life, whoever it might be, you have to be you authentically you, as opposed to what anyone else might say. And that's the kind of authenticity that passes for common sense that I think we have to interrogate a little bit more.

Yeah, let's interrogate a little bit. I mean, because you obviously do it in your book, just the mindset of it and you can put it in your words, but your first chapter, looking in around and up, what does that mean? Because you're sort of going after the culture says, do this, what's it mean? You just read it, sort of look in to find the answers in life.

Explain that. Well, Dave, before you go there, I think these are going to be great conversations at the dinner table. As we have Trevin kind of talk about this, I would say jot down in your mind, maybe take a note like, I'm going to ask this at the dinner table tonight. So when you're talking about looking in, looking around and then looking up, explain those. So I lay out in the book, there are three ways of looking at life, but the one that's most common in our culture is one which I would say in terms of priority means you start by looking in, then you look around and then finally you look up. And what I mean by that is first you look in, you have to be the one to define yourself. You have to look into your heart. You have to figure out what your deepest desires are so that you know what you want to pursue in your life, but no one can tell you who you are, what you want to be. Your desires determine your destiny.

And this is our culture speaking. This is our culture speaking that you look in first. That's the way, that's how you have to figure out who you are is you have to look in and decide that for yourself. Then once you've done that, you look around to people around you for support, for affirmation, people who will cheer you on, who will love the unique person that you've discovered and that you've- They're affirming.

Put on display. They're affirming this person that you've discovered. That's right. That's who you are. That's who you are.

Yeah. And so the kinds of friends that you gather around yourself are those who are going to always be supportive and affirming. And then if you still feel like there's something missing in your life or that you need some sort of a spiritual dimension, well then you look up to God or to some higher power or maybe you adopt some religious or spiritual practices of some sort in order to have that touch of inspiration in your life.

But maybe you'll read a Christian book or maybe you'll listen to some kind of inspirational music of some sort. At two times the speed. That probably. That's right. Although it doesn't go as well with music.

Yeah, no it doesn't. So that's in terms of priority, I think that's where our culture is, is that you look in first to define and discover yourself. Then you look around to the people around you to put yourself on display and then you look up to God or to some higher power for a little bit of inspiration or a spiritual dimension in your life. Now would you say this is a new approach to life or has it always been this way? Well, I think it's been building for, I mean, if you want to trace the philosophy, you can go back actually a couple hundred years, but it's been building for the last 150 years to the point where it's become common sense now.

So this was maybe new 150 years ago, but more recently in our culture, anyway, it has become the dominant way of thinking of life. And is that, in your perspective, is that an American approach or is that worldwide? It is distinctly American, but there is a lot of overlap with other Western societies.

So it tends to be more Western. And that leads us to the question about, well, how do countries outside the West view life? And that's really an important question because if this is common sense here, well, it's good for us to recognize it's not common sense everywhere. And I think we've got to be aware that throughout most of history and other parts of the world today, that's not the way that you look at life. In fact, that's what I call the look around approach, meaning by priority, you look around first to the community to discover who you are.

So that would be their first one. We're looking around. We're not looking in, we're looking around. That's right.

Different approach. You look around at many Eastern influenced societies. It's you look around to your family, to the community, to define you. And we even have this a little bit, if you think about last names that are also jobs, like Shoemaker, for example. For generations, people just did what the family did. So the family trade would be passed on from generation to generation. And there wasn't a whole lot of, I mean, if you go back several hundred years ago, or even now in other parts of the world, there wasn't a whole lot of discussion between parents and children as to, well, what am I going to be when I grow up? You're going to be a Shoemaker.

I'm going to show you. The girl's going to learn from the mom what to do, and the guy's going to learn from the dad what to do, and you're going to step into those roles to continue on the tradition. And so this is also where we have cultures that would feel like don't bring shame upon the family. Absolutely. They're feeling, that person's feeling the weight of an entire community of family.

That's right. So in a look around approach to life, the community defines you. The community has desires for you. And then, so you look around first, then you look up to a sacred order that's underpinning all of this, whether it be a connection to ancestors or whatever it might be, but there's something bigger than that.

And then within that, you then look in and you may have in a small confined space room to discover yourself or to have some kind of unique contribution to make. But that's a very different way of looking at life, and yet it's common sense for a lot of people in other parts of the world. Show us as we go back to the looking in, let's say, call it the American way right now. Or the Western mindset. Yeah. Give us examples, let's say, through music, through movies, through entertainment.

Give us some examples. That's right. So there's so many places we could turn because it's just so prevalent.

I mean, think about all of the inspirational pop songs about being true to yourself or about believing in yourself or you determining who you want to be. But it certainly, and in a lot of films we talked about Disney movies, and I'm not saying this as a cranky, ban Disney from the house. Yeah. And your kids have watched all these movies.

Oh yes. I love to watch movies that are well done and to talk about them. But if you notice, the dominant message in many Disney movies, not all of them, but in many, is you have a hero or a heroine who is casting off the constraints of the community and is pursuing their own destiny of finally being free from these expectations that others would put on them and finally being true to themselves. You see it from anything from The Little Mermaid to, there's a sense in which that's the story of Aladdin to become this prince. The story of the animated version of Mulan, which interestingly enough was not popular in China when it first came out for this reason is that they are a more of a look around culture and Mulan- Was being too introspective. She was.

She was looking in and she was fighting for her own glory and she was not allowing the priority of the community to take precedent. And all of these movies, you have this sense though in which the narrative drama is, I'm going to reject conformity with what other people say, whether it be my family or the tradition or whatnot, I'm going to cast those things off and I'm going to fulfill my destiny. I'm going to chase my dream and follow my heart and be who I am supposed to be. And that's the narrative drama that a lot of people in our society live themselves is that's what they think. And so sometimes when people leave the church, for example, they grow up in church, they decide I'm going to have to leave my church community or my home.

Sometimes it's that same impulse of in order to really be true to myself, I'm going to have to put aside any kind of conformity with the culture I've been raised in or the community around me. And I'm going to go achieve whatever I want to achieve. I'm going to chase my dreams.

No one else's dreams. Now what's a push back on that? What's wrong with that? I mean, not the lead the church part, but the message of you be you, you do you. I'm guessing some of us as parents sometimes have even said that.

Not in a negative way, but man, you're uniquely created and it sounds like a great message. What's wrong with that approach? That's the question. So there is some truth in it because this is the thing. There's actually truth in both that look in approach that's popular here in the West and in that look around approach. If there weren't any truth in it, it wouldn't be attractive to so many people.

It wouldn't catch on. And the truth is that in some societies where the look around approach has been so dominant, the individual self can be squelched to an unhealthy degree, that there can be a press for conformity or the shame of the community and things like that to where it would actually be unhealthy. So there is something exhilarating in the idea of I can be the one to determine my destiny and I can be the one to break free of these expectations and I can chart my own course.

There's something inspiring about that when you look at it in that light. And the reality is the scriptures do teach us that we are individuals. We are made in the image of God. God has made each of us uniquely.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made. God does have a unique purpose and plan for our lives. And so there is something that should resonate even with us as Christians is that there is something about the unique contributions that we make to the kingdom of God, to the good of the people around us. There's a sense in which the idea of being true to yourself when filtered through the lens of scripture can actually work. But in terms of priority, that can only come after we look up first rather than look in first. Once we reverse the priority, and there's that third way of looking at life that we talked about, where you don't look in and then around and then up, but where you look up first to God, to his design, to what he says to be true about us, to us being made in his image, to be a display of his glory. When you look up first, then you look around to the people that he's placed around us, a community of faith who's not just going to affirm and support us, but also going to love us, guide us, correct us at times, help us keep us on the path to being the best versions of ourselves we could be. Then we look in and we see who we were truly made to be, and we can begin living into our God-given destiny. So it's God first. We've said this before, God first, others second, us third. But it's in that priority where we actually find true meaning and happiness.

And yet, as we've been talking, that's very countercultural today. In fact, I was thinking, I talk to so many moms as we talk about our kids. And I remember talking to a pastor's wife one time, they had four kids, and I said, what do you really hope for your kids? And she said, easy, I just want them to be happy. And I remember going home, I didn't say anything to her.

Good move. But I just thought, oh, that's not big enough. Because is happy what we want? Because sometimes when we're happy, you know, it's like you don't have this desperate need for Jesus. And I remember going home thinking, what do I really want for my kids? And what do I want?

I want them to know Jesus, but there's so much more. Have you found that as parents? Do you feel like is that goal not big enough? Good enough? Of course, we all want that.

Sure. But what are you thinking for your kids? What do you guys talk about? When we talk about happiness, I want my kids to know that sometimes the things you think are going to make you happy aren't the things that will make you happy. Here's the thing, most people think if you just chase your dreams, you got to figure out what you want the most out of life, then you got to chase it with all your might.

The problem is, all around us are people who've done that. And they come up, they finally pursue, maybe they even achieve what they went for, and they thought they wanted most, and then they find out their heart lied to them. That what they thought their heart wanted most wasn't really what their heart wanted most. So when we talk about happiness, I want my kids to be happy, truly happy. But I know that happiness is not going to come from them doing whatever it is that they think they want.

That's the difference. It's going to come from Jesus. So I want them to find their happiness in Jesus Christ. And when we talk about happiness, I want my kids to know, look, your desires will mislead you.

They will mislead you. Sometimes you will have desires that you think this is what you really want. And then after you get there, you realize it wasn't, you wanted something else. And then other times your desires will be in conflict with each other.

They don't even make sense. I would love to be able to eat everything I want. Oh, me too. And live a really long life. But the older we get, the more we have to have those conversations with a doctor who basically is like, life doesn't work that way. Your desires can come into conflict with each other.

And then you've got to make choices based on what is, do I want more? And at the end of the day, when we talk about happiness with our kids, I want them to know, don't be fooled. Don't be led astray by things that you think you want the most because your heart will deceive you.

Go after Jesus because it's only in Him where true happiness can be found. I think that all of us throughout the day find ourselves sometimes looking around, sometimes looking in, and we need to be reminded to look up. We need to remember that that's where truth is found. That's where a right understanding of our self is found. And we need to help our kids with this as well.

Dave and Ann have been talking today with Trevin Wax, who has written a very helpful book on this subject called Rethink Your Self, all about identity, a great book for us and a great book for us to go through with our teenagers. In fact, we want to make this book available to you this week to any of you who would like a copy. If you can help support the Ministry of Family Life with a donation, we'd love to send you this book as our thank you gift. Go to familylifetoday.com to make an online donation or call us to donate over the phone.

1-800-FL-TODAY is our number. And let me just remind you that the Ministry of Family Life, all that happens through this ministry happens because you make it happen. When you give to Family Life Today, you're helping us reach hundreds of thousands of people day in and day out with practical, biblical help and hope for their marriage and for their family. So thanks in advance for your support of the ministry and we hope you enjoy Trevin Wax's book, Rethink Your Self. Again, you can request it when you make an online donation at familylifetoday.com or call to donate at 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. Now tomorrow, Trevin Wax is going to help us understand what happens in our lives when we adjust our perspective.

When instead of looking inside first or looking around us first, we start to look up first. I hope you can join us for that tomorrow. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We will see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.