Anyone who has ever had their identity stolen knows what a nightmare can result.� Consider Cinderella; we all know the story�

�There once was a widower who remarried. His second wife was ill-natured, and she had two daughters who were just as unpleasant as their mother. The man had a beautiful, gentle daughter of his own, and she was soon to become the servant of her evil step-mother and step-sisters. They made her do all the chores around the house, and she was named Cinderella, after the cinders she swept out of the fireplace.

The King needed to find a queen for his prince, so he threw a huge ball. The evil step-mother and step-sisters were invited, but Cinderella was not allowed to go. After they left, Cinderella�s fairy godmother appeared and changed her dirty rags into a beautiful gown with glass slippers. Next the fairy godmother changed a pumpkin into a coach and some mice into footmen. Before Cinderella left, the fairy godmother warned her to be home before midnight, because the spell would only last till then.

Cinderella was a hit at the ball. The prince fell in love with her and asked her name. Just then the clock struck midnight, and Cinderella ran away. She was in such a hurry, she lost one of her glass slippers. It was the only clue the prince had to find his true love. He went to every home in the kingdom and had every single young girl try on the slipper to see if it fit. The evil step-sisters couldn�t fit the slipper, but Cinderella did. The prince married her and they all lived happily ever after.� ^[i]

Our universal identity crisis

�What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,
what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not
me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling
you seem to say so.�

___Hamlet�(2.2.295-302), Hamlet to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Similarly we, all of us, have fallen victim to the �Cinderella Syndrome� and are completely unaware of the toll it has taken from the day we were born.� We are born with an aching hunger for significance and identity.� Dumped unceremoniously into this world from a perfectly secure womb, slapped into consciousness, and handed over to total strangers, our first taste of life can be most unsettling.� What follows often adds to that impression�never-ending childhood injuries, voices telling us not to do things, and while loved, constant reminders that we�ll need a lot of work to become an acceptable member of society.� Throw in a few rounds of school house bullying, critical teachers, and mean friends and is it any wonder that most of us find ourselves in the middle of a three-alarm identity crisis.� Who am I?� What am I here for?� Where am I going?

The first lesson in getting along comes quickly.� It goes like this�be good and people will accept you, be bad and they will reject you.� The second lesson, not unlike the first is�you scratch my back and I�ll scratch yours.�� From the start we are delivered a paradigm that we must struggle to earn the approval of others and thus derive an identity as being either �good� or �bad.�� Because everything in life seems to work that way, when we get around to thinking about God, this �earning thing� comes along for the ride.� That is why religions that tell us to do something are so popular; they make sense and we�re told that we can �make it� if we just try hard enough.

Identity theft is a modern day scourge that threatens anyone with a social security number, driver�s license or credit card.� Sadly, the dark shadow of criminal intent seems to follow each successive advance in technology; the results can be devastating, as one person�s identity becomes another person�s means of enrichment.� Spiritual identity theft is no less devastating and occurs when the Devil can convince anyone that they don�t matter, aren�t precious, have no potential.� In his book, �Sacred Romance, John Eldredge writes,

�Cinderella lived with her stepsisters, a shrewish pair who made her sleep with the coal in the furnace room and had her convinced she would be anything more than a maid.� I remember thinking as I looked at the pictures of Cinderella in my child�s storybook, �Doesn�t she know how beautiful she is?� Can�t she see she is so different from her stepsisters both inside and out?� Why doesn�t she just look in the mirror?�

The confusion of a life away from God

An unintended consequence of getting older is attending an increasing number of funerals for acquaintances and business associates.� It reminds you of the fragility and fleeting nature of our lives.� One minute a close friend is vital and present, and the next minute he�s gone.� Unless you really concentrate, it�s hard to even remember what he looked like.� The shock and grief of unexpected death fades into a wispy memory, as though the person never existed.� This starkly realistic view of life is reflected in James 4:14, �You don�t know the first thing about tomorrow. You�re nothing but a wisp of fog, catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing.� ^[1]

When it comes to �the hereafter,� most ordinarily responsible people inexplicably morph into hazy-eyed players in a high-stakes game of spiritual roulette that can only be explained as �the triumph of hope over experience.�� We plan, analyze, and strive to secure �our futures,� all the way up to our last breath, and without a thought to its blinding inconsistency, leave the rest to chance; and we do so in the face of the fragility and uncertainty of life all around us.

We seem to be afflicted with a form of “spiritual schizophrenia,” focusing our days upon comparatively trivial pursuits, while indefinitely deferring those looming thoughts about death, eternity, loss of existence, and “meeting our maker.”� We agonize over a job loss or financial reversal, or spend weeks researching what kind of automobile to buy, while turning a blind eye to the inevitability that our lives will terminate without notice in a blinding flash one day soon.

Blais� Pascal (1623-1662 in Paris, France) wrote of this human paradox with great frustration,

�Nothing is so important to man as his own state, nothing is as formidable to him as eternity; and thus it is not natural that there should be men indifferent to the loss of their existence, and to the perils of everlasting suffering. They are quite different with regard to all other things. They are afraid of mere trifles; they foresee them; they feel them. And this same man who spends so many days and nights in rage and despair for the loss of office, or for some imaginary insult to his honor, is the very one who knows without anxiety and without emotion that he will lose all by death. It is a monstrous thing to see in the same heart and at the same time this sensibility to trifles and this strange insensibility to the greatest objects. It is an incomprehensible enchantment, and a supernatural slumber, which indicates as its cause an all-powerful force.� ^[ii]

Strangely, instead of honestly facing these �inconvenient truths,� we tend to retreat into creature comforts, an endless stream of entertainment or for many, drugs and alcohol which serve as temporary sedatives; but then the morning-after announces, like a jarring gong, that reality has returned.

In their search for meaning, some thoughtful people adopt a secular humanistic world view, relying on science, culture, and/or academia to explain �it all,� often discarding the notion of a higher creator-power in the process.� Others embrace one or another �flavor� of religion, seeking refuge among the rituals, �holy� teachings, submission to leaders, and their faith community.� Still others abandon the search for meaning and plant their feet firmly in thin air for the remainder of their lives.� John Luca wrote,

“We create ourselves by our choices, but our choices take place in a great mysterious world. S�ren Kierkegaard said we are here on sealed orders. There is only so much we can know about who we are, why we are and where we are. To some degree, we make our choices in the dark. We are limited in what we can know and imagine. We are surrounded by things greater than we�ll ever be.” ^[iii]

The modern movie series The Matrix �depicts a dystopian future in which reality as perceived by most humans is actually a simulated reality or cyberspace called “the Matrix”, created by sentient machines to pacify and subdue the human population�Computer programmer “Neo” discovers this truth and is drawn into a rebellion against the machines, which involves other people who have been freed from the “dream world” and into reality.�

Similarly, the bible depicts a multi-dimensional reality in which the visible spectrum is but a part of a much more pervasive spiritual realm inhabited by angels, demons, principalities, and powers that dwarf in scale and number what we are able to see with our eyes.� It is in this invisible domain that cosmic battles between good and evil are continuously being played out with the hearts and minds of human beings hanging in the balance.

Sadly, as in the movie, few humans choose to believe in this unseen dimension and as a result, play out their lives according to the simulated reality set forth by the evil powers and thus miss the whole point of their existence. We are purpose-built to be in relationship, first with our God and then with each other, giving our lives purpose and ultimate significance.

Ashleigh Brilliant once wrote, �I have abandoned my search for truth and am now looking for a good fantasy.� ^[iv] He is like those who retreat into the fatalistic view that they are in the hands of unknown powers and are destined to be tossed to and fro by its capricious moods.

But try as we may, deep down inside, the heavenly hounds still bark, albeit off in the distance.� Pascal wisely observed, �There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator…� ^[v]

That pesky homing instinct

Despite modern man�s efforts to eradicate any notion of a superior Being, many still harbor a sneaking hunch that those shrieking God-deniers are, as Shakespeare would say, �protesting too much.�� Their strident denials betray a tentative note as they explain away their internal sense of the eternal; the substance may be gone, but its haunting echo remains.� Scripture reminds us, �He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.� ^[2]

To be sure, that inbred sense that we are made of more than meets the eye may be systematically eroded or even brainwashed into silence, but it is rarely eradicated.� This explains why even the most confirmed atheist, when suddenly placed in a life-threatening crisis, can be found crying out to the very God he has denied.� While perhaps just �covering his bases,� our atheist is displaying a hard-wired homing instinct that seems to have been placed there by Someone on the outside.� We know of no such eternal instinct in any members of the animal or plant kingdom.

In his book �No Small Snakes,� Gordon Dalbey observes,

�Because today God has been revealing Himself powerfully through the work of His spirit, the enemy has been working overtime to stage such a counterfeit revival.� Fascinated by spiritual power and psychic phenomena, people have been flocking to movies dealing with dark occult powers, from the exorcist to Harry Potter.� This signals that the body of Christ has abandoned its� calling to reveal true and authentic spirituality.�

�The truth�.so well hidden by our many material comforts�.is that this physical, material world is not our home.� We do not originate here, nor do we end up here.� On earth we just �sojourn�, as the psalmist wrote, (Ps. 119.19 NRSV), or �foreigners and refugees�, (Heb. 11:13).� So as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord�s home� (2 Cor. 5:6).� We are creatures of a God who �is Spirit� as John wrote, and only by the power of his spirit can people worship him as he really is� (John 4:24).�

�As creatures of a spiritual God, we are primarily not bodies who occasionally enter or glimpse the world of the spirit.� First and foremost, we�re spirits who have been commissioned out of the spirit realm to take on bodies.� Because we are fundamentally spiritual creatures, spiritual power will always be attractive, engaging, even fascinating to us, because it reminds us of our true home beyond this world.� We�re homesick for God.� Our hearts long to reconnect with our authentic spiritual home in Him.� [vi]

The Apostle Paul poetically paints the future for every true believer in Christ as follows, �� we know that when these bodies of ours are taken down like tents and folded away, they will be replaced by resurrection bodies in heaven�God-made, not handmade�and we�ll never have to relocate our �tents� again. Sometimes we can hardly wait to move�and so we cry out in frustration. Compared to what�s coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we�re tired of it! We�ve been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies! The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what�s ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we�ll never settle for less.� [3]

Deep down inside man senses a nagging, haunting metaphysical sense that there is more to this material world than meets the eye.� He finds himself repulsed by postmodern notions that we�re mere evolutionary accidents, coming from nowhere and inexorably being swept toward oblivion.� We can�t resist the impulse to connect with our true spiritual home, even though we can only �see� it through a glass darkly.� Meantime, right under our noses, the most remarkable communication in human history calls out from the realm of the supernatural and beckons us upward into the very mind of God.

Everything in the bible points to a Creator-God who, �alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see.���� Such a God is possessed of a nature that is perfectly pure, holy, just and righteous�he is the exact opposite of evil.� In his kingdom, there is order and intentionality; outside of his direct influence there is chaos, unpredictability and randomness.� He never wavers in his judgments, �bends the rules,� or �grades on the curve.�� His minimum requirement is absolute perfection, which strangely draws us and terrifies us at the same time.

Playing hide-and-seek with the divine

It seems almost silly to say that before a person can find God, he must first seek him, and just as importantly, want him be there in the first place.� The childhood game of hide-and-seek would lose all of its appeal if the seeker simply sat there and made no attempt to finder the hider.� Modern man has largely positioned himself in a similar way, having decided to just �sit there,� and leave the seeking to God, if he exists at all.� We are surrounded by a society of such people, and when any individual proactively breaks out and actively seeks for transcendent meaning, he is viewed as a �religious nut,� or is politely placed in social quarantine.�

Yet scripture calls us to seek him, because lying just beyond and out of sight is a Being who wants to be found.� It�s not that He hasn�t left us with abundant evidence of His presence, we are reminded �The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.� ^[4]� In fact the scripture sounds a distinct note of personal responsibility when it points out, �…since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God�s invisible qualities�his eternal power and divine nature�have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.� ^[5]� While we may consider such a spiritual quest optional, be assured, God does not.

Dallas Willard challenged us with this,

�One should seriously inquire if to live in a world permeated with God and the knowledge of God is something they themselves truly desire.� If not, they can be assured that God will excuse them from his presence�they have become people so locked into their own self-worship and denial of God that they cannot want God.�^[vii]

God Always Goes Before

Herein lies a paradox�addressed eloquently by A. W. Tozer, in his book �The Pursuit Of God�:

�Christian theology teaches the doctrine of prevenient grace, which briefly stated means this, that before a man can seek God, God must first have sought the man.� Before a sinful man can think a right thought of God, there must have been a work of enlightenment done within him; imperfect it may be, but a true work nonetheless, and the secret cause of all desiring and seeking and praying which may follow.�

�We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit, “No man can come to me,” said our Lord, “except the Father which hath sent me draw him,” and it is by this very prevenient drawing that God takes from us every vestige of credit for the act of coming. The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the out working of that impulse is our following hard after Him; and all the time we are pursuing Him we are already in His hand: “Thy right hand upholds me.”

�In this divine “upholding” and human “following” there is no contradiction. All is of God, for as von H�gel teaches, God is always previous. In practice, however, (that is, where God’s previous working meets man’s present response) man must pursue God. On our part there must be positive reciprocation if this secret drawing of God is to eventuate in identifiable experience of the Divine. In the warm language of personal feeling this is stated in the Forty-second Psalm: “As the hart pants after the water brooks, so pants my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?” This is deep calling unto deep, and the longing heart will understand it.� [viii]

From this we can deduce that no one really pursues God by themselves, if the urge exists at all, it has been placed there in advance by God.

There is of course the option of continuing to live for oneself and behave as though there is no God, but the cost is high.� Very high indeed.� In his book �Renovation of the Heart� Dallas Willard warns,

�Thus no one chooses in the abstract to go to hell, or even be the kind of person who belongs there.� But their orientation toward self leads them to become the kind of person for whom away-from-God is the only place for which they are suited.� It is a place they would, in the end, choose for themselves, rather than come to humble themselves before God and accept who he is.� Whether or not God�s will is infinitely flexible, the human will is not.� There are limits beyond which it cannot bend back, cannot turn or repent.�

�We should be very sure that the ruined soul is not one who has missed a few more or less important theological points and will flunk a theological examination at the end of life.� Hell is not an �oops!� or a slip.� One does not miss heaven by a hair, but by constant effort to avoid and escape God.� Outer darkness is for one who, everything said, wants it, whose entire orientation has slowly and firmly set itself against God and therefore against how the universe actually is.� It is for those who are disastrously in error about their own life and their place before God and man.� The ruined soul must be willing to hear of and recognize its own ruin before it can find out how to enter a different path, the path of eternal life�� ^[ix]

Bottom line, if we insist on holding on to our inner darkness, outer darkness is sure to follow.� That is why the scriptures so often call us to repentance, which in the Greek of the New Testament is the word, �metanoeo,� which means, �to think differently or afterwards, i.e. reconsider.�� Literally, we are called to a �new mind� on the matter of what makes us �tick� and how we are intended to fit into God�s universe as a whole.

And finding out how I fit in God�s universe requires an answer to one of the most important questions I can ever ask�who am I?� Not in the opinion of my �evil stepmother,� siblings, or even in my own eyes.� What I need to know is, �Who am I� in the opinion of the God who made me.� After all, he�s the only one who has my original �blueprints.�� The right answers there could change everything.� Stay tuned.

[1] James 4: 14,15�The Message (MSG)

[2] Ecclesiastes 3:11 New International Version (NIV)

[3] 2 Corinthians 5: 1-5 The Message (MSG)

[4] Psalm 19:1 (New International Version, �2010)

[5] Romans 1:19-20 (New International Version, �2010)

[i] http://www.comedyimprov.com/music/schmoll/tales.html#—-Cinderella—-

[ii] Blaise Pascal, PENSEES, (Paris, France, 1660), translated by W. F. Trotter.

[iii] http://www.noozhawk.com/article/011411_john_luca_do_we_create_ourselves_by_our_choices/

[iv] http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/15038.Ashleigh_Brilliant

[v] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/b/blaisepasc395508.html

[vi] Dalbey, Gordon. No Small Snakes: A Journey into Spiritual Warfare. Nashville, TN: T. Nelson, 2008. Print.

[vii] Willard, Dallas. “Radical Evil in the Ruined Soul.”�Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2002. N. pag. Print.

[viii] A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God (Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1948), 11-12.

[ix] Willard, Dallas. “Radical Evil in the Ruined Soul.” Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2012. N. pag. Print.