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Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Pastoral Ponderings ~ Grieving the Betrayal of the Self

    
“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”[1]
          When God’s word tells us that we are to do “nothing” from “selfish ambition or conceit,” and we are to look “not only” to our “own interests,” it confronts something in the lives of abused and traumatized people that will come as a betrayal. It exposes that a part of our selves we have been relying on as a best friend is actually our worst enemy.
          I speak of the “self” that I often refer to as the “sark”. Anything in our lives that is “selfish” is an enemy, not a friend. Even though our sark claims it got us through hard days, and was there right at our side to help us through abuse, or was the only one standing with us when we were weeping over the latest experience of trauma, the sark is LYING!
          Now, I know that the sark really believes that it is the best thing that has ever happened to us. The “self” loves to sing its own praises of the “I did it my way” variety. The sad thing is that it believes its own press, and that is one reason it comes across so sincerely. It’s just that it is sincerely mistaken, kind of like someone sincerely believing there is no poison in their poisoned glass of wine. Believing something sincerely can be rather deadly.
          What stands out to me is how the “do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit,” speaks to those of us who have expended great effort overcoming the painful experiences of the past. We look back at times in our lives when we did not know God well enough to trust him with what we were going through. We remember very lonely seasons when there was not one person coming to our rescue, speaking in our defense, comforting us after trauma, or standing beside us in an attack; but our sark was there. We could always rely on our self.
          So it appeared that our sark was our BFF, our very best friend forever. It was always there; it was always full of ideas about what to do; it was often surprisingly successful about making us feel better after something happened to us. It was loyal, and faithful, and always present, so what could be wrong with having a friend like that?
          The main problem with the sark, or the flesh, or the “self” that lives by “selfish ambition,” is that it believes it is good enough to replace God. It presents its self as the answer to all our problems. It shows up to every circumstance as if relying on self is going to fix everything. All through life we repeat that childhood discovery, “I can do it myself!”
          But the honest admission of the real condition of our souls betrays that our sark did not protect us from harm, did not give us the best options, did not build healthy and strong relationships with others, or give us the loving attachments our souls long to experience.          
          However, when we come to hear that there is someone better suited to handling everything to do with our lives, it comes with this very difficult first step: deny yourself.[2] Get rid of “selfish ambition.” Cut out everything do with the flesh, the sark, the self that seeks to do things without God, the self that wants you to think it is better than God, and can handle things for much greater good than God has ever dreamed.
          What I have had to accept is that, any time I have relied on the sark, the flesh, the self, to figure out what to do independent of God, I have invariably done things wrong. The sark cannot do anything with God, but only independent from him, which means it is always lacking what God can and would do, hence it is wrong because God is right.
          So, as I process this “do nothing from selfish ambition,” through the mindset of working out every aspect of my salvation with fear and trembling in response to whatever God is working in me to will and to work for his good pleasure,[3] there is no room for the sark at all.[4]
          Which means that we must have a better hope in looking back on our pasts than the deadly adage of, “I did it my way!” We might feel grief at letting go of a good friend, because we found comfort in feeling like we made it. We came out as survivors. We relied on our selves because there was no one else to rely on.
          Except that there was. Even if we didn’t know it, there was still a better way, and a better person to turn to. If our sark had the ability to truly care about us, it would have spent all its time telling us about Jesus, and what he did to cleanse us of sin, and how he reconciles us to God through his shed blood. If the sark really cared, it would have told us about the best person in the world, the person who could have been with us in the painful experiences of childhood.
          But this sark, this friend who got us through good times and bad, who helped us survive immense odds, did not give us what is best. And now, when it argues against God, and tells us not to trust Jesus because of the things that went wrong when we were young, it is continuing its twisted logic. It wants us to not believe in the person who could help us now because of what it, the sark, did to keep us from God when we were young.
          For the past few weeks God has been ministering to my soul with the amazing partnership he wants us to experience with him. It is described as I have already shared, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”[5]
          Here is what God wants us to know now, even if it means grieving the loss of what we thought we had with our self, our sark. We can enjoy a relationship with God in which he is always working in us for our good, and calling us to join him in his work for our joy.
          When God speaks to us and says, “I did it my way,” our sin-problem is solved, not denied. We receive eternal life, not the eternal shock that doing it our way landed us in unavoidable judgment for our refusal to believe in God’s Son (at the constant recommendation of our sark).[6]
          What God did for us his way is what we could never do our way. No one who did it their way in this lifetime has eternal life. Only those who come to the God who did it his way have life eternal.
          So, please don’t take long to grieve the giving up of your self, or your sark. This isn’t talking about you giving up yourself as a person, but the sark part of you that keeps trying to keep the real you from knowing God. Don’t let your selfish ambition keep you from seeing what God would do if you humbled yourself with fear and trembling, and responded to the things he is working to do in you for his good pleasure and your complete joy.
          I encourage you to spend time in God’s book, the Bible, and see what God says that will contradict what your self/sark has been telling you. God will heal the brokenhearted and bind up our wounds.[7]He will forgive our sins.[8] He will give us eternal life if we believe in Jesus instead of our selves/sarks.[9]
          One thing Jesus said really helped me understand how giving up the sark/self gives me something far better. He said, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”[10]I believe this means that, when we set out on our own, depending on our self/sark to “make it”, we lose our real lives, the real person God created us to be. On the other hand, when we lose our selfish, sarky, lives, giving up our selfish ambitions, turning to Jesus Christ in dependence on him, we find the life we were created to experience.
          It is very sad that the people who loved the song, “I did it my way,” end up losing the very life they thought they prized so highly. Those who love the fact that God interrupted our sarky existence and showed us that he did it his way, take hold of the free gift of eternal life, and live forever. No wonder the song-writer would sing, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”[11]
          You cannot come to know the joy and pleasure of God by doing it your own way. But when you ask God to show you his way, his path of life, you will join the family that will one day live in that joyful place forever. And, in the joy of Christ, you will not spend long grieving the loss of dependence on your sark.

© 2015 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)




[1] Philippians 2:3-4
[2] Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23
[3] Philippians 2:12-13
[4] Philippians 3:3
[5] Philippians 2:12-13
[6] John 3:16-18
[7] Psalm 147:3
[8] I John 1:9
[9] John 3:16
[10] Matthew 10:39
[11] Psalm 16:11

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