I can still remember the day that my van had broken down on
the way to Horseshoe Bay. I was able to get a ride as far as the ferry terminal,
but then ended up waiting for many hours until a man from our home church
ministry on Vancouver Island was able to meet me and take me and my stuff
across.
During that extended wait, guarding my inordinately large
collection of bags and totes, I spent most of my time reading a book about how
men grow up.[1]
The author, Jim Wilder, takes readers on a journey through the stages of
development but with the distinctive focus on how this relates to boys becoming
men.
Throughout the book it was intriguing to me that Wilder had
such a positive response from men by identifying that most of us are still
stuck in the infant and child levels of maturity. At first I wondered how many
men would find that insulting, but quickly saw how admitting to where we are
really starting from is a message of hope because it shows us how to grow up
honestly instead of pretending to be something we are not and never growing up
at all.[2]
On that particular outdoor reading session I came across an
explanation of what it means to deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and
follow Jesus Christ,[3]
that exposed some significant wrong thinking on this teaching, and opened my
heart to so much hope and healing I didn’t know I was lacking.
My wrong thinking was that I had understood denying myself
to mean denying my personhood, how I am doing, what’s going on with me on the
inside, what I am really like. I thought that denying myself meant suppressing
real things about me so I could put on a brave front, pretend nothing was
wrong, and charge into spiritual battle without any regard for how it was
impacting me.
What I had never noticed was that this false form of
self-denial required a dependence on my self to make it happen. How did I make
sure I didn’t leak out real feelings in my relationship with God? By
suppressing them. How did I carry on after traumatic experiences as if nothing
happened? By relying on myself to hide the condition of my soul.
The truly deceptive thing was that the whole while I thought
I was denying myself I was really depending on myself to handle hurts, and
wounds, and brokenness in order to keep them out of my relationship with God. I
thought that was the self I was supposed to deny, the one that was broken and
wounded, and so I had to rely on myself to keep the real me from knowing how to
come to Jesus.
What gave me so much hope in this discovery was that it
liberated me to rely on Jesus to handle everything that was broken and wounded
within me. Instead of the lie that I was okay, and that I could handle
everything myself so I could be there for Jesus as a soldier of the cross, I
discovered that I could admit to what was true about me, deny my ability to
handle it, and take up the redemptive work of Jesus Christ as the full
provision for everything that was wrong with me, wounds included.
This regularly comes up in both my relationship with God and
people. Will I rely on myself to be the good Christian who tries to do
everything right without any attachment to the true condition of my soul? Or
will I humble myself before the mighty hand of God as the only one who can
handle what is wrong with me?
What God is working on quite constantly is to get me to
admit my true soul- condition, deny any of my sarky efforts to handle it in my
own strength,[4]
turn to him through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ on the cross, and
follow Jesus where he leads me, including through whatever painful feelings and
humbling weaknesses are still in me because I am not yet fully like him. As I
deny my sark/flesh in its efforts to handle my life, I am then able to admit to
everything in my life knowing that it is God who will carry on to completion
his good work of conforming me to the image and likeness of his Son.
[1]
The Complete Guide to Living with Men, E. James Wilder, Shephard's
House, Inc., 2004
[2]
This too was a revelation for me, that pretending to be something we are not
keeps us from maturing since we are never relating to God out of the true
condition of our souls. Only when we come to God in brokenness, admitting the
true condition of our souls, can God engage us in his work of leading us to
maturity in his Son.
[3]
Luke 9:23
[4]
I believe that Romans 7 and 8 are an expanded explanation of what Jesus meant
by denying ourselves (denying the flesh as the means of making ourselves right
with God), taking up our cross daily (everything to do with what Jesus
accomplished through his redemptive work on the cross), and now following Jesus
by setting our minds on the Spirit. In all of this, we are free to fully
acknowledge how we are doing, but we no longer depend on ourselves to handle
those things. Instead, we cry out, “Abba! Father!” and come to God with
everything, depending on him as the only one who can restore us to the image
and likeness of his Son.
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