For three days, God was speaking, “You care too much about what people think.” When I told my twenty-two year old, she responded, “What? I don’t think you do.”
But truth deep inside, rarely lies.
And this theme had been striking me recently, through text messages, words I’d been reading. And then, there was that time, God prompted me to go pick up my daughter from youth group.
On the way home, I asked, “What did you learn.”
Her answer? “To care what God thinks about us, not man.”
Ugh. There it was again.
It was the final breath of confirmation. Clearly, this was His word for me, for this season.
It was time to silence the voices, echoings of people, opinions from others about how I needed to live my life…
The promises of regrets would need to die. The shaming, the “recommendations” needed to sink into the pits of the ocean, and truth needed to rise.
As a child, “fear of man” was paralizing. I couldn’t move by the plaguing of messages in my mind of my unworthiness and insignificance.
I was muted, then drowned myself….but a glimmer of light refused to be muted.
Over the years, a voice has risen inside me. A heart, a message. God has been speaking through service and refines me while writing this blog.
I have learned to hear my heart beat, not apologize for this air I breath, step forward, not just cowardly, but with heart, determination and intentionality.
Because, truth is….we have one life, (just one) and it is our choice (not anyone else’s) how and what we will do with it.
Let’s use our one life well.
Yes, I knew, there was a measure of self, that still had to go. This idea that me, myself, and I could rise up in pride AND still see God’s glory alive, was a lie.
I have been reading, for dozen’s of years, To live is Christ and to die to self is gain.
I have scoured scripture, and have found, God and man can’t be glorified together. To be a Christian requ
ires full surrender.
Tweet ThisWe must decrease so His temple of goodness can begin rising in us.
And some might find it easy. But after a life-time of learning how to not drown, tred, and keep my head outside the water…
We must become nothing, so He can be everything…is so much easier said that done.
“Christ is to live and to die is
to gain”, Philippians 1:21 tells us. “He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again,” 2 Corinthians 5:15 promises.
With recent relations with North Korea de-escalation, the economy healthy, our nation rising in hope, freedom, and patriotism…
It can be easy to be blinded, spiritually speaking, not realizing the earth is still stepping towards a time when Jesus will return.
We find signs of it in the narcissism of man increasing, the rise of suicide, the derailment of families and morality.
I came across a passage, and had to stop and think a second. With a world centered and spinning rapidly around US, doesn’t it take focus and intentionality, purpose, and great humility to push the focus off of us and onto the one who died for our sins?
2 Timothy tells us, “In the last days dangerous times [of great stress and trouble] will come [difficult days that will be hard to bear]. 2 For people will be lovers of self [narcissistic, self-focused], lovers of money [impelled by greed], boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy and profane, 3 [a
nd they will be] unloving [devoid of natural human affection, calloused and inhumane], irreconcilable, malicious gossips, devoid of self-control [intemperate, immoral], brutal, haters of good, 4 traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of [sensual] pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to a form of [outward] godliness (religion), although they have denied its power [for their conduct nullifies their claim of faith].”
And oh friends, don’t we come up, every single day, using a thousand different ways to mask sin and selfishness?
“I am just having a little fun”, “What will it hurt anyone?” “You only live once.” “I just need a little time for ME”, “It’s my life. No one can tell ME what to do.”
All the ways we cloak our self-worship; through instagrams filled with our own photos, to boasting of good works, self-congratulations and the constant self-promotion.
We are drenched in a world that has catered so long to selfishness, I think most of us wouldn’t even recognize a life surrendered if it stood before us beckoning.
In Chi*a, at a home for orphaned children, I remember the reality of a couple who unknowingly confronted my own self-centeredness…not by words, but by me witnessing their life poured out, day and night for others.
Friends, isn’t it always about that contrast, that Jesus-emptied, blood-poured-out, fully surrendered life, in contrast with our own egos, that helps us recognize our weaknesses and self-centerdedness most…
Isn’t it the faces of the most humble that confronts our ugly pride? The contrast between light and dark that announces our selfishness…more than any words of condemnation or church leaders demanding we change?
The kindness of the Lord leads us to repentance. And it was my own heart, God had been speaking to, when I heard the words from my daughter after coming back from youth group.
- I needed to shift my focus away from self; away from the words everyone else was speaking about how I was spending my life on others.
- I needed to grip this call, the one God placed in me, with both hands, and not let go, despite what people have been telling me.
- I needed to hold fast to that truth that I know that I know…God placed breath in me, to love those most needing it…
And not in some half-hearted way, but fully, deeply, so wholeheartedly that nothing else could stick…not love of this world, not the praises of man, not my own selfish wishes, desires or dreams.
Yes God, this is my heart. Take me. Use me. Make me a light that reaches the nations.
I am yours. Fully. Completely. Again, I stand here consecrated to the One who showed me how to give my life away freely. Freely He died, freely we can give….even of ourselves.
Yes, I live for you. Father, take and use me. It is no longer I who live…but you Lord, who lives in me.
Let me be your vessel. Fully consecreated to you.
1 Comment
Beautiful, Jenger.
I hear the struggle that you had, the same one I had, growing up trained to please man, and now being challenged to live to please God alone, for a man-pleaser cannot also be a God-pleaser.
I believe that we have learnt much on our journeys and I know that we are both eternity focused, living each day in service of our Living God, the King of Kings, to whom we are betrothed.
Worship and work must be one, and the work you do with children in your home, and advocating for others in Perua and Ch*na is in fact Him loving the little children, in and through you. May my Kingdom work have eternal value, also.
Much love, dearly beloved Jenger.