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Letting Go of Self
Do you ever stop and think of whom you were before Christ? Do you remember thinking that Christians had it all together and that they knew a secret that you didn’t? Do you remember feeling unworthy and left out and all together undesirable to the Lord? I do.
I am cemented in Christ today, but that wasn’t always the case. I was a mess; still am. But, before I was a mess on my own. Now, I am a mess in Christ and He offers me undeserving redemption every single moment of every single day.
I am so far from where I pray to be when the Lord calls me home. I am fallen and broken and beyond repair. And, if you are this side of the Kingdom, you are too. We all are. We are all so incapable of managing life on our own. When we do, it all falls to pieces. Sure, there are days when things seem to go well but then the bottom falls out and we are left to wonder why we were even created.
I used to feel this way. I would coast joyfully along without a care in the world and then something would happen and my life would seem to shatter into a million pieces. My despair was palpable. I would spend days, weeks, even months sometimes wallowing in the unwanted pain and hurt I would feel. I knew, I just knew, that something had to give. That something was me. After the Lord pursued me through friends and loved ones, I realized I had to die to self in order to live….really live.
I started with The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. It is a daily devotional. The book is not a self-help book or a ‘how-to’ book, it is simply a book that helps you to discover what your true purpose is. I realized as I read through that my purpose was to give up the self-centered, immature, selfish person I was so that I could love freely and wholly. So I could care without boundaries. So that I could give abundantly of all the Lord had created in me. I realized my purpose was to live the life the Lord so graciously gifted me. I needed to give up the Samantha I wanted to be and pursue the Samantha the Lord desires me to be.
As I read the book, I started to consider scripture. I started in Psalms, Proverbs and a bit of the New Testament. At first I was baffled and confounded; I had no idea what I was reading or why it should apply to me. Then I asked the Lord to soften my heart, take the hard edges away and really show me the purpose of His Word. The more I sought His guidance and trusted that the words of my prayers were actually going to the Lord’s ear, and not just aimlessly floating through space, the Word started to make sense. I started to feel like it was written specifically for me. I was awed and amazed. Really, I was humbled. I started to see the selfishness that had taken over my life. My husband, my children, my friendships had all been taken over by my self-serving, “I deserve to be happy” mentality. It shook me to my core.
The more I sought the Lord, the more I found peace and discomfort. What?! Yes, peace and discomfort. I was learning to lean on Him, but all the while He was stripping me down of what I had grown so familiar to, my own fallen self. It hurt and was uncomfortable. I had to come to terms with the fact that the old me had to go. I had to change my life, my friends, my routine.
My life had been about me and what made me comfortable. I wasn’t put on this earth to serve myself, but to serve others. Most importantly; my husband and children. By acting so immature, what kind of influence would I have on my children? How could they grow to be anything but immature and self-serving if that was the only example I provided. The Lord helped.
The Lord showed me that I could live in Him. I could be wrapped in His goodness. He allowed me to let go of the woman I was and slowly showed me glimpses of the woman I would become. He softened the hard edges of my heart.
Am I who I want to be? NO! Certainly not. But, I am becoming her. I am being refined and created anew. I am learning to rely fully on the Lord when I feel myself back-sliding. I am learning that it’s ok to fall, because when we do He picks us up and shows us who we can be in Him.
I pray for all of us who struggle with ‘self.’ I pray that the Lord will fill you with His Holy Spirit and little by little you will let go of the person you were and cling to Him. He will make you a new creation.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
2 Corinthians5:17
To read more thoughts from Samantha Ewing, visit her at http://sunshinelittleone.wordpress.com/
Copyright © 2008-2015 Samantha Ewing
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