Live Fully As Your True Self

Recently, I  decided to let my beard pursue it's inclinations to be grey.  

I'd been fighting the good fight for a long time with various beard washes that add enough color to cover most of the grey, but not enough to make me look like I'm completely coloring my beard.  

It's a little thing, but it was liberating to me.  Like a lot of other areas in my life, I long to be free to simply be who I am.  To a point.  

Despite my raised fist in the air about the color of my beard, I do actually care what people think of me.  

I've discovered that I'm not the only person to struggle with conformity and the expectations of others when it comes to living authentically.  Even the most confident among us have niggling doubts about how they are perceived.  

In a world filled with noise, expectations, and pressure to conform, it is easy to lose sight of who we truly are. 

Many of us spend our days chasing the approval of others, silencing our inner voice, and wearing masks that hide our God-given identity. We live in fear that we are not enough, and the even greater fear of being found out.  

Anb we fear death, but in our efforts to avoid it, as we pretend to be someone we are not, we forget how to live. 

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross once said: 

“It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we're alive—to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are.” 

Jesus speaks directly to this in John 10:10 when He says, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” 

The abundant life Christ offers is not a life of fear or conformity, but one of freedom, authenticity, and divine purpose. It’s a life that flows from knowing who we are in Him and living from that center, not from the world’s expectations.

Too often, fear of failure, rejection, or death leads us to live cautiously behind walls. We craft personas that meet the standards of our culture, our families, or even our churches—personas that might gain acceptance, but cost us our soul. In doing so, we risk what Kübler-Ross calls “spiritual death,” the numbing of our true selves.

But God did not create us to live numb, muted, or hidden. God created you to live fully, as you. 

Scripture tells us we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). That means your quirks, your passions, your story—all of it—has sacred worth. Living fully as yourself is not selfish; it is holy. It honors the Creator who formed you uniquely in love.

So today, release the need to be someone else. Let go of the fear that dims your light. Embrace the life Christ offers—a life where you are free to be your whole self, because your identity is not determined by others but by the One who calls you “beloved.”

You are a child of God, deeply loved and fully known. Live boldly. Live authentically. Live alive.

May you do so in joy, and may the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all, now and forever. Amen.