It's ok to surrender our true selves, the part that makes me me, the part I don't want to give up and I hope will live on after I die, to God - because He is the one that created that good part of me, who wanted me to have it. It's sharing with someone who can understand it, who in fact has it in even more abundance than you do.
If yo surrender this most valuable possession, your true self - everything else is easy to surrender, and it will change all output areas of your life - relationships, emotional, social, etc.
Also, you can't just be holy when you want to - it's easy to do something when you want to do it.
The Long Story:
Devotional about God's will that my church is doing, and my responses to it.
I had some realizations, so I'll skip to those.
Identify 2 people in your daily life you want to know more about their spiritual walk - love this! Because that's what it's about. Not converting people, but people at any stage - whether they're a Christian or not - connecting with them on their spiritual walk. Finding out where they're coming from, and where they're at.
Surrendering to God's Will
Christ says if we want to follow him, we have to deny ourselves, take up our cross (an instrument of torture and death), and follow him. That we have to lose our lives (die) to save our lives.
And another hard statement: God's will for your life is that you would place your own will, agenda, and schedule firmly in second place behind His.
Thinking about dying - what does that mean without physical death? Had the realization that we have an idea of this kernel of ourselves, our true selves inside. Most of the time when we surrender, we say Ok, I'll serve you with my actions, or give my actions over to you. But if you go against that true self, what I consider to be the real me, I'm not ok with that and will fight you. Me: it's more than my personality, though that is unique.
And so with dying, though we physically lose our lives, since in this case we don't, it must be that barrier that our true selves comes to. That's why that 2nd statement is so hard. It means submitting that true self of mine to God. Which can feel like extinguishing it...except I realized that God made it. The good stuff I like about me, you're not really losing that if you realize you're sharing it with someone else - in fact the very being that put them there in the first place. Who wanted you to be like that. Who has even more goodness to offer.
So it's easy to give it up if you give it up to your creator - the ones who put them there in the first place, who surely will give it back or make it even more powerful and better.
"God's will is not that you should worry about what you think should happen, instead that you would radically obey as you follow him. You won't always know where you are going. You won't always know where you are." - love this.
The next question - about asking yourself whether you're willing to surrender everything including your money to God - then becomes easy.
Holiness
-I realized that it's easy to be holy when I want to be holy, but not so easy during the other times. Times when I'm in the midst of an argument and the other person says the lowball jab, or low on sleep and just trying to survive, or someone just screwed me over and expects me to take it lying down. And if holiness is defined as being like God, then I have to count the times where I'm writing or having a great time rocking out or doing something fun...and someone needs me. Can I just ignore them? God says to value our relationships. Times when someone I don't really want to talk to wants to be my shadow for the night, or texts/calls me every day or several times a day. Human superglue. So, during those times, it's not easy. And it's not that I have to be available every minute or not have boundaries - even Jesus withdrew at times for solitude, praying, etc.
It's easy to forgive ourselves. We make excuses for ourselves all the time, which psychology shows us we don't do for others - i.e., if the other person said a mean thing, they're a mean person, but if I said a mean thing, I'm short on sleep so they'll understand. In other words, we attribute others' actions to inward attributes, but our own to external factors.
So with being holy, I generally think of myself as a holy, good person...except for the times I'm not, which it's tempting to discount and say "those are the rare times". Really? I mean, really?? Self, do you think you're even holy 90% of the time? You're probably about as holy as the average - maybe a little higher because I do place high value on being good, probably higher than average, and I am drawn to spiritual things. But you're probably waaay underestimating the amount of time you're not (that whole self-bias thing again).
What areas of your life do you show no visible fruit of Christ being present? - NO NO NO!!! This makes it totally works based, as if I'll just identify an area of my life that's lacking and try to fix it. No no no!! First of all, that's me doing it. The focus on myself, instead of on God. Second, how often do our fixes last anyway? If we try to fix an area, say diet and exercise, we resolve to do it, do it for a couple days, then it slowly fades away again. You cannot fix an area in isolation, because that area is manifesting your inner beliefs.
No, the lasting solution comes from holiness. If you are a Christian, you are holy because Christ lives in you, and when you've truly internalized that, it will seep into all areas of your life. So if you identify even one area where you could be more Christlike, or particularly one area that badly needs work, it means you need to focus on your own internal holiness.
Suffering
We all want a stable, comfortable, life, right?
- Financially secure - I have this today, but not necessarily for the future. I'd feel much more comfortable knowing my kids wouldn't have to worry about money, especially having enough money for future developmental activities like soccer and dance. Let's say we had plenty of money to have that well covered, where I wouldn't have to worry.
- Dependable vehicle - if I had the above, wouldn't have to worry because we could afford a new one if our car broke down at all, or afford any fixes.
- Live in a stable environment with no emotional turmoil - YES. I do want this. Not even thinking of abuse, just even disagreements, or not getting the emotional response you want. Not having to worry about any of that. Sounds wonderful.
- Work a job with no stress or challenges - now I'm thinking this list sounds boring. Is it possible to have everything happy all the time and not get bored or feel like there's more to life? I'm thinking of a relationship with one of my friends who keeps things interesting. She's always popping up with new interesting questions and ideas, and we haven't had friction, so maybe? Although her new ideas are usually a result of stress in her own life - injury, finances, the stress of not having her house the way she wants it. So maybe not.
The idea was, don't pursue these things over pursuing God.
Suffering: an important question to ask - how can I learn more about God through this hardship? I think about my marriage, the hardest part of my life recently. I can learn more about being gentle, and patience - characteristics God certainly has.
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