Today, we're pleased to share with you an audio essay written and read by Kevin DeYoung entitled

Do Not Be True to Yourself.

Kevin DeYoung's new book is Do Not Be True to Yourself, countercultural advice for the

rest of your life from Crossway.

Do not be true to yourself, written and read by Kevin D. Young.

20 years ago, Anna Quindlin, a writer for the New York Times, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and a recipient of prestigious honorary degrees, gave this advice to a group of graduating seniors. Each of you is as different as

your fingertips. Why should you march to any lockstep? Our love of lockstep is our greatest curse,

the source of all that bedevils us. It is the source of homophobia, xenophobia, racism, sexism,

terrorism, bigotry of every variety in hue,

because it tells us that there is one right way to do things, to look, to behave, to feel,

when the only right way is to feel your heart hammering inside you and to listen to what its

timpany is saying. That's fairly typical commencement counsel.

Follow your dreams. March to the beat of your own drummer. Be true to yourself.

I'd like to offer different advice. Do not follow your dreams. Do not march to the beat of your own

drummer. And whatever you do, do not be true to yourself.

If you think I'm being a little hyperbolic, you're right. I'll provide some nuance to this

advice at the end. But I believe it's important to state the matter provocatively because our world

screams at us in thousands of commercials, movies, and songs, that the best way to live,

the only authentic way to live, is for you to be you, for you to live out your truth,

for you to find your true self, and then have the courage to live accordingly.

The Bible, on the other hand, tells us there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death from Proverbs 14.

Think of the story of Esau, who sold his birthright for a pot of stew.

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