How to Find Yourself: Why Looking Inward Is Not the Answer
Brian Rosner, my colleague and boss, has written a gem of a book called: How to Find Yourself: Why Looking Inward Is Not the Answer (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2022).
The premise for the book is that today in the 21st-century West, identity is everything. Never has it been more important, culturally speaking, to know who you are and be true to yourself. Expressive individualism―the belief that looking inward is the way to find yourself―has become the primary approach to identity formation, and questioning anyone’s “self-made self” or self-identification is often considered an unfair attack on them.
Be that as it may, Brian Rosner argues that personal identity is formed not only by looking inward, but also by looking around to your relationships, backward and forward to your life stories, and upward to God. In How to Find Yourself, Rosner attempts to equip readers to engage sympathetically with some of the most pressing questions of our day about identity, narratives, justice, community, and culture. Challenging the status quo, Rosner offers an approach to identity formation that leads to more secure and joyful self-knowledge: being known intimately and personally by God and following the script of the Scriptures.
In an age where “Be True to Yourself” is considered better advice than the Sermon on the Mount, I recommend Brian’s book. The problem with “be true to yourself” is that it assumes that I already have all the resources I need to succeed, I am perfect as I am, I just need to click my heels together three times, smile, and go get what I want. What it forgets is our propensity for evil, our need to be taught and mentored, the art of learning from our mistakes, and the resources for those things come from elsewhere.
Anyway, as a teaser you can read some good articles by Rosner on:
Very late to this party—this book sounds helpful, but I really dislike the negative use of “looking inward.” It is ambiguous language, and taken differently, the phrase can describe a helpful part of spiritual practice. What isn’t acknowledged cannot be transformed. Running away from what is really going on inside is disastrous. Christians would do well to know themselves well and seek healthy self-awareness in God’s presence.
It’s fabulous. Couldn’t put it down. Timely and penetrating insight.