THE ART OF LOSING YOURSELF

Hello Beautiful Readers! And welcome back to my blog!

This one is going to be a tough one...are you ready?

Now as fancy and artistic as the title may sound, I am here to speak about what it truly means to walk the Christian walk, and hopefully to encourage you in it. This is something that I have come to learn, but also just beginning to see the beauty of it.

There's been a trend going on the last couple of years that you need to find yourself and focus on YOUR happiness. I think that our generation is struggling with an identity crisis. We are struggling with this need to be right, to be heard, to be accepted. And I hope you can agree with me that some of it seems to be getting out of hand. But I am not here to talk about that. I am here to discuss your true identity. Who your creator says you are, because who knows you better than the one who created you?

First things first, let's just highlight the fact that you were made with a PURPOSE, whether we are speaking in general, or even biologically. We were made in the image of God...body, mind, and spirit. You are not on this Earth out of chance or happening. You have been CHOSEN. You have been intricately made. You are not a mistake. Let me show you:

Psalm 139:13 - 18

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb.

Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!

Your workmanship is marvelous - how well I know it.

You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.

You saw me before I was born.

Every day of my life was recorded in your book.

Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.

How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.

They cannot be numbered!

I can't even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand!

And when I wake up, you are still with me.

Now, instead of going on a wild goose chase trying to figure out the big question of "Who am I?", let's look at what we are called to. In my last blog post I spoke about how God's plans for us are there to prosper us. That they are so much better than our own. This is not to say do not have goals, or do not have dreams. Rather to be open to the fact that if God is directing our steps, we cannot go wrong. When we try to figure things out our own way, however, then this is a different story. You see,

Matthew 6:20

Your heart will always pursue what you treasure.

And if what you treasure is not of God, I can almost assure you that it is worldly, fleshly, and most likely ungodly. So how do we change this?

We begin with first recognizing our brokenness. We are told that our hearts are "deceitful above all things, and desperately sick" [Jeremiah 17:9], and so we need to, "above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." [Proverbs 4:23].

Ultimately we are called to deny ourselves:

Matthew 16:24-26

Then Jesus said to His disciples, 'If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever losses his life for My sake will find it.'

What does that mean? To deny ourselves?

Well what are we holding onto so dearly? What possessions, if we lost them, would we not be able to live without? We are living in a world where nothing satisfies, nothing fulfills. And so we are constantly trying to; keep up with the latest trends, buy the next best thing, expanding, trying to gain more wealth, more fame, more friends, more everything...no matter the cost. We end up losing ourselves in the process of trying to "find ourselves". Tell me you're content with what you have? Tell me you're happy, needing nothing?

So what does it then mean to let go and deny ourselves and our own desires? Well, Paul writes it so beautifully by saying:

Romans 12:1-2

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice - the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

Romans 12:3

... Don't think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given to us.

How do we do this? How do we give our bodies over to God? Well, by daily giving our desires over to Him. We do not change overnight and He works in us in His own time. You may be convicted of something now, and something else much later. Be patient with yourself.

I've had to lose myself to gain Him, to gain freedom and to be set free from being a slave to sin. As you may know from my previous blogs, I was not perfect, I'm still not, but I am much better off now than I was a couple years ago. This is not to say that when you start to pursue God and you are set free from things that you may not fall back into them in a moment of weakness. God looks at our hearts. He calls us to repentance, to continuously lay these things at His feet.

What I can attest to, is that when I started my pursuit after God, He made it easier to let go of things that had a grip on me. Once I was set free from them, I can't tell you the relief I felt...the healing I experienced. I could tell you many stories about how I have been set free from anxiety and stress, addiction, eating disorders, and so much more, but that is not what is important. What's important is that once I was broken and lost, trying to find my identity in the world, and now I am found, I have purpose, I have a place. Life makes sense.

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.