Sometimes I lay down self. When I have the courage to do that, I feel so strong and deeply rooted in Christ as my savior, defender, and provider.
But as much as I hate to admit it, I don’t do this 100% of the time. Sometimes I find myself choosing do do something just because I can. But when instead, I choose to be refined. To let God change my mind, submit to His leading, and let Him change my desires to look more like His, HE is brought so much glory. Its like the result immediately changes from me getting my way to HIM being glorified.
Month 4 of Guatemala has been so different. We’ve spent the whole month tilling and de-weeding a giant field for the ministry at Loving Arms. Which has been good for someone who is a strange mix between a farmers daughter and a social butterfly mother. Though its been a challenge not talking with people as much this month, it has allowed time and space to really think and pray and process through how much was heart was invested in Honduras last month. Its like that feeling where God is still teaching you, but your heart is able to catch its breath.
A big lesson I’ve learned this month has to do with fixing my focus and energy on God and dying to self.
That’s really what love looks like: forgetting your wants and needs because you are thinking so much about the desires of another person. In other countries, this kind of love seems to come naturally. The people immediately think of your needs before considering their own.
For me, dying to self seems to look a lot different than for most. Rather than doing things that I wouldnt prefer with people, sometimes it means to not do anything at all (which takes a conscious effort to accomplish if you know me!).
For me, dying to self this month has meant things like buying a Disney princess coloring book and coloring during our free time so that my team can just rest instead of always going with me to do things.
I’ve been told that I push people to do things for most of my life, but at what point does that shift from motivating others to not knowing how to love their needs and wants as much as my own?
Sometimes when I lay down self, it lasts only for a moment, or for an hour, a day, a month, or a season.
But my question is this- when will I learn to die to my self so much that it doesn’t creep back in? That it doesn’t even exist anymore?
God tells us that once we’ve does to sin, and died to ourself, then that person no longer exists!
Galatians 2:20
“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the son of God, who loved me and gave Himself For me.”
So if I don’t live, but now Christ lives in me, then why do I have such a hard time aligning my desires completely with His consistently?How can I grasp what my weak flesh can’t conquer? The never ending desire for what I want, when I want it, how I want it?
Some call it being picky, some call it being stubborn, some call it fear, some call it control, some call it selfish. But no matter how you call it, it’s just a lot of self where there needs to be a lot of God!
This place I keep trying to figure out, the place of desires, is never going to be a place that can be emptied out entirely.
It was never meant to be a place of complete emptiness, but rather it’s a place that is meant to be filled with so much greater things than my own desires. It’s a place meant to be filled with a longing for Gods will to be done and for others to understand His ways.
“Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.”
What would life look like if every Christian lived by this verse? If we all sought Gods kingdom coming here to earth so hard and had Gods desires on the forefront of our mind so much that we forgot to even acknowledge our own. That voice we hear in our heads saying “what’s in it for me? What do I want? How can I benefit most?” would finally be silenced.
But it’s easy to think what the people around us teach us to think- why not do the things we want all the time?
The difference is this. When my desires. Your desires. Our desires as humans, line up with Gods, our purpose becomes HIM. Our desires become HIS desires not ours. Because if our self is dead, He can live through us. The God of the universe says “there is no place I would rather dwell than in your heart.” Only when our self is completely dead can Gods spirit completely live in us though, and only then can His will be completely done on earth.
Isn’t that mind blowing!? That God himself chooses to humble himself to our own limitations. To work within us and make Himself known to the world through us- even when we resist Him and seek our self instead. He waits. Like a patient Father waiting for his daughter to understand that all He does is out of love.
We have to have our eyes completely fixed on Him to not be distracted by the things around us!
There will never be a time when the world is not trying to sell you something. In America, it was countless TV ads that try to catch your attention and draw you in.
In Guatemala, it’s sitting on chicken buses while people come on and describe their product, place it in your hand, and try and get you to buy from them.
But this is just physical things. Isn’t it so much harder to say no to the thoughts or selfish motives that are constantly soliciting in our heads?
But when you know what you want, when you know what you love for, nothing else catches your attention!
When your so focused on what you already have and have already been given, no solicitation matters!
I dream of this kind of consistency in my thoughts, and desire this freedom for every single believer!
What if all of our eyes were so FIXED on JESUS that we weren’t easily distracted, confused, or swayed by thoughts, opinions, and circumstances?
It takes a solider who knows His orders to walk the walk were supposed to walk.
I’ve found that this growth comes in moments. Moments that God gives me the chance to make my thoughts and desires obedient to him, because until our hearts are fully aligned with His, it’s what we have to do!
Ephesians 1:18
“Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the power of his great might.”
Though it’s difficult and seems small, take advantage of those moments God gives you to grow! Because when we choose to seek his desires it takes the active effort of laying down our own in that given moment.
Those die to self moments are for His glory and our good.
