You Are Not Your Own by Alan Noble

Weeks after finishing You are Not Your Own, its ideas continue to resonate with me. Noble sets out to explain how we Americans have come to the place where hyper individualism is killing us rather than fulfilling us.

He writes, If I am my own and belong to myself, then I must define who I am…. And the terrifying thing is that everyone else in society is doing the exact same thing. Everyone is on their own private journey of self-discovery and self-expression, so that at times, modern life feels like billions of people in the same room shouting their own name so that everyone else knows they exist and who they are – which is a fairly accurate description of social media.

The irony of a culture that promises that you “can be all you can be” without reference to any higher good or higher power is that no plateau is high enough. There’s always some level of perfection or self-actualization just out of reach. The freedom of sovereign individualism comes at a great price. Once I am liberated from all social, moral, natural, and religious values, I become responsible for the meaning of my own life. Hence the lie: If I am completely responsible for my life, then the greatest moral failure would be for me to fail to pursue what I desire most. I owe it to myself to be happy. The only problem with this is that unlimited desire and consumption always leave us exhausted and empty.

But there is good news, says Noble. Christ frees us from the unbearable burden of self-belonging.

An anthropology defined by our belonging to God is diametrically opposed to the contemporary belief that we are autonomous, free, atomistic individuals who find our greatest fulfillment in breaking free from all external norms. Our selves belong to God, and we are joyfully limited and restrained by the obligations, virtues, and love that naturally come from this belonging. This living before God is not easy. It requires sacrifice and humility, perpetual repentance and dependence upon Christ. In a secular age such as our own, it requires an intentional effort to remember that we belong to Christ, and that belonging is not merely a doctrine, but a reality that touches every aspect of our lives.

This is a tremendous book if you are feeling overwhelmed by breath-takingly rapid changes in our society and want to step back and see how it all happened. It is also a wonderful reminder to vigilantly resist the false promises the world offers for self-fulfillment.

Interestingly, I was primed for this book by, first, experiencing ministry burnout and, second, by reading A Gentleman in Moscow. Both experiences caused me to question the frenzy of always doing more, and to ponder ways to live more humanly within our God-given limits. 

Blessings,