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Let us pray God giver of life, may I decrease and you increase in your son's name? Amen . Have you ever considered the question? How do you know what you believe is actually what you believe

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? I'm not referring to what others believe about you , but rather to the sort of belief that you genuinely accept as your own. For some of us locating the self can be a complicated endeavor. Indeed

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, does a genuine self even exist? Some would say that traces of the self can be found in decision making or acts of the will. But then again, do all actions of the will embody the

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fullness of the self. Perhaps some of you have come to seminary simply as a way to find yourself maybe for others, you probably feel more lost now than before you came to seminary. Mhm. Now

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, if you yourself decided to come here to try and find yourself, I would argue that the self in you was never lost to begin with. However , if you're here because you're following the instincts of

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others, then I would say that you will probably have a very hard time finding yourself here Now to complicate matters even further, how will you know when the Self in You has been found? Surely this

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implies that's some sense of self is in you enough to discern that the self you have found is in fact, truly you Mhm, simply put only you can accept who you really are with psalm 16.

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We have a psalm written mostly in the first person singular, which suggests its initial use as a personal and non corporate song. Now, it's in its canonical use, we are allowed into this private song

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with unrestricted access to the Saddamists, personal beliefs in God and hence herself, rather than register the self in notions of desire, ambition, or pride, the psalmist turns to the realm of belief as a

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vehicle for discovering herself. In many ways, this is a move that runs throughout the hebrew bible in that good or bad. The human writers link their personhood to their belief in God. In contemporary terms

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, you are what you believe yet, as revealing as our beliefs are about ourselves, the psalmist beliefs reveal a particular kind of self that is worth considering . First. The kind of self that comes to

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the fore In the psalms belief beliefs is one grounded in awareness. In the first verse, the psalmist has a strong sense that threats to her well being are part of life, stating, protect me,

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Oh God, for a new I take refuge here . I find wisdom in the psalmist awareness about evil . My sense is that this awareness renders a self who is grounded and sure of her position. The

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idea here is not. Is that not everyone around you is necessarily seeking your well being. As some of you can attest, there are egos near and far that would desire nothing more than to see you

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fail for the psalmist, her belief in God as her protector and refuge reveals a self that is aware of evil and hence takes a stance against it. Although these are important qualities to the psalmist sense of

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self, they are established upon her spiritual self. Here, the psalmist spirituality admits to the limitations of of a intellectual awareness about the workings of evil. For some forms of evil can operate in secret and

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out of sight. This is where having a spiritual self can be essential to discerning both seen and disguised forms of evil. In verse two, The song was switches from first person to 2nd person female.

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This switch is amended in multiple english versions by reading the female you as the first person i is not . This the kind of amendment of the female you indicative of today's identity politics, in which others seek

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to determine who the real you should be. Sometimes it is hard to find the real me, especially when I leave it to others to tell me who I really am. Yet if I had left it

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totally to others to define who I really am, I probably would not be standing here today in our racially constructed society. Brown bodies are often deemed criminal and inferior. Left in the hands of the experts

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. I would probably be in prison today or dead . Yet I choose to resist the Emond ations of others on my personhood, which also includes my voice and ultimately, my mexican, jewish us. Borderlands

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self, socially constructed identities and stereotypes have tried to reduce my voice to a singular latino discourse. Such attempts only work to re inscribe notions of inferiority and that they assume that I am only capable of being

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one person, a hispanic male similar to the psalmist . I hear more than a voice from my borderlands . I I also hear my second person you who loves both Shakespeare and los Tigres del norte, who

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is both a pastor and a professor who likes both Cuban coffee and english tea and so on and so forth. When we allow the female self to remain in the psalm without amendment, the female subject appears

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as someone talking to herself. This is not a trivial matter, given the scarcity of female speech in the human, in the hebrew bible kept as it is in the hebrew, the psalmist tells herself,

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you female said to the Lord. The result is an inter self dialogue between the female you and hence the female i hearing your own voice. It's not always easy to channel, especially in a context where

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there are nefarious forces at work to render you voiceless . In terms of the female voice of the psalmist , her second person and her first person speak to each other in a spiritual dialogue that attributes her well

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being to her God, literally, My Lord, you are my good, none above you. Not all conversations with the self can be this pleasant for some people. Talking to the inner self can occur

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through a discourse of self hate and regret, which may lead to illness, drug addiction or even suicide . This is where the Solomon's voice can be helpful to the extent that she has us consider a spiritual

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discourse as a mode for self care. In other words, her recourse to spiritual dialogue with herself, assumes that nurturing the self requires much more than common sense. Self care also requires prayer for the psalmist

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. Her prayer contains a series of affirmations about who God is in her life. She speaks of God's blessings, guidance, strength, mercy, and direction here. The psalmist belief in God reveals a self

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who is self caring, Her form of self caring has in view her entire personhood, which in verse nine include her heart, her soul and her body caring for yourself may not always be at the forefront

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of your life, especially at this time in the semester. It may be that you are far from a pleasant place. The last thing you have time for is self care. In the coming months,

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I look forward to being on sabbatical. Indeed, I am very grateful to Austin Seminary for the generous opportunity to have a year of paid leave in order to finish a few major book projects. Yet I

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also know that my time away will involve some form of self care, sometimes in teaching students how to care for others. I forget to teach them about their own self care. Indeed, how can we

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care for others if we never learn how to care for ourselves after this semester ends, how will you care for yourself? Perhaps the psalmist believing self can provide some direction for, as she shows us,

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we are more than intellectual factories, but rather heart , soul, body and, most importantly, spirit