{"id":30875,"date":"2019-12-15T23:27:16","date_gmt":"2019-12-16T05:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=30875"},"modified":"2019-12-15T23:27:16","modified_gmt":"2019-12-16T05:27:16","slug":"audio-finding-meaning-true-self-requires-rejection-of-your-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=30875","title":{"rendered":"AUDIO: Finding meaning, true self requires rejection of your culture"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Seeking-spirit-in-nature.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-30876\" src=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Seeking-spirit-in-nature.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"460\" height=\"259\" srcset=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Seeking-spirit-in-nature.jpg 460w, https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Seeking-spirit-in-nature-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 460px) 100vw, 460px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Personal growth is a path to alienation from the world.<\/p>\n<p>When I was younger, I assumed that things such as spiritual growth and personal development would allow me to fit in with those around me better. I thought that as I learned to love others and learned to experience God more fully, it would be easier to live in human society.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve realized lately that the truth is just the opposite. It&#8217;s easy to fit into the culture around us without emotional or spiritual growth. All it requires is molding ourselves into whatever those around us want.<\/p>\n<p>But finding transcendental meaning and discovering your true self require you to give up what your culture and your friends and your family want you to be \u2014 because human culture is ultimately in conflict with what God created us to be.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve realized lately that Jesus told us this 2,000 years ago, but we\u2019ve simply missed the point.\u00a0Finding the truth \u2014 and finding our true self \u2014 requires us to be something entirely different from what our culture demands.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Click or tap the \u201cplay\u201d button to listen.<\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-30875-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Rejecting-world-for-the-truth.m4a?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Rejecting-world-for-the-truth.m4a\">https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Rejecting-world-for-the-truth.m4a<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Personal growth is a path to alienation from the world. When I was younger, I assumed that things such as spiritual growth and personal development would allow me to fit in with those around me better. I thought that as I learned to love others and learned to experience God more fully, it would be <a href=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=30875\" class=\"more-link\">Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-81Z","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30875"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30888,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30875\/revisions\/30888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}