The Narcissist, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit

What goes on in the mind of the Narcissistic Boaster?

I wait for you to admire me, to reflect back to me my astuteness. Accomplishments. Attractiveness. I am quite irresistible, you know.

And because my essence emanates these extraordinary qualities, it will take no effort on my part before you recognize them.

And applaud me. Compliment me. Orient your attention on me. 

Me.

If you try to steal my glory, you will find yourself eclipsed.

After all, it is I with whom you are competing.

With omnipotent self-assurance, Boaster patterned persons follow in the footsteps of their namesake, the Greek god Narcissus, who according to legend, fell in love with his own reflection in a pool.

Paul understood the Narcissistic pattern. Of his years as Saul of Tarsus, Paul wrote: “I was so enthusiastic about the traditions of my ancestors that I advanced head and shoulders above my peers in my career” (Gal 1:13-14). 

Christ was unimpressed. On the road to Damascus, Saul was confronted and rendered helpless; made temporarily blind, in fact. This was followed by three years in the desert. 

And then…Paul writes, “If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit,” Paul says. “Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another” (Gal 5:25-26).

These are the words of one who chose to face and surrender his Narcissistic pattern to God. Of one whose core fear was being replaced by actualizing trust. “For God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of his Son” (Rom 1:9). The Spirit is the source of Paul’s serving God through his spirit. Paul’s spiritual core is yielded to God, flowing with the rivers of living water in an actualizing rhythm of weakness and strength, love and assertion. Paul did not secure such a life in the Spirit; rather, he risked realizing it imperfectly, as does anyone who grows in Christ.

Risking trust in the Lord. How? “The Spirit assists us in our weaknesses; for we do not know for what we should pray as we ought, but the Spirit makes appeal (in our behalf) with inarticulate groanings” (Rom 8:26-27). 

Fear is still present. Anxiety still spirals in wormy wisps within one’s spiritual core. But the Spirit employs the vulnerability one feels, gently handling the enormity of one’s weaknesses, and intercedes on one’s behalf. A person prays with the visceral immediacy of one’s whole being—mind and heart, body and spirit—by enlisting the help of the Holy Spirit, who understands the mind of God.

The Spirit’s aim is not to eliminate a person’s humanity, but to work through it with the “water of rebirth and renewal” (Titus 3:5). For it is the Holy Spirit who circumcises the heart so that the righteousness required by the Torah is fulfilled by those who walk in the Spirit (cf. Rom 8: 4).

The result of such surrender? Receiving as gift a growing core trust in the Spirit. Trust that erases core fear sufficiently for one’s personality to work for good; to be conformed by that same Spirit into one’s unique image of Christ.

As the spiritual core is opened to the cleansing flow of the rivers of living water, the core grows more free from the tyrannies of one’s narrowness (cf. 1 Cor 3:18-23).

For more, read:

COMPASS PSYCHOTHEOLOGY: 

WHERE PSYCHOLOGY and THEOLOGY REALLY MEET