Ridding ME of Me

I talk to God a lot and my conversations are so often the same. Me pleading for Him to show up, me asking Him to do a mighty work in my life, me begging Him to use me for His glory. And now even looking back over that long sentence (a run-on one, too, I might add) I see a common theme that keeps rearing it's ugly little head.

Me.

Because all too often I make it ALL about me.

And here's how those requests to God usually end up being translated:

• Show up in my life... as long as it's convenient for me and doesn't disrupt my precious schedule.
• Do a might work in my life... as long as I don't have to sacrifice anything too significant.
• Use me for Your glory... as long as it makes me look good in the process.

And somehow even in an innocent-enough way of attempting to seem very spiritual, I have missed the point entirely.

And what is it really? Do I honestly believe that God, in all His power and wisdom and sovereignty, needs my input and my expertise to accomplish His plan and purpose?

Because He doesn't.

Despite my overwhelming desire to control and my inability to surrender fully, He does not need my input.

And I open right to it. There in Matthew, chapter 16. Jesus begins explaining to His disciples that it would be necessary for Him to go to Jerusalem and suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, leading priests, and teachers of the religious law. With clarity He detailed that He would be killed and on the third day be raised from the dead.

“But Peter took Him aside and began to reprimand Him for saying such things. 'Heaven forbid, Lord' he said. 'This will never happen to you.'” {Matt 16:22} NLT

And I get what Peter is saying here. I understand the deep pain He must have felt at the very thought of His beloved Jesus being taken from him. In all of his humanness, Peter couldn't imagine a life without His King. And He was desperately trying to control the situation. The way I desperately try to control my own situations.

And Jesus, turning to Peter says the harsh words almost too painful to read,

“Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap for Me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God's.'” {Matt 16:23}

Peter was not ill-intentioned. He loved Jesus. But he was in the way.

And I, too, get in the way.

I am Peter.

And it's the worldly thinking that will destroy me every time. It's when I think my ways are better. It's when I think that this whole giant cosmos is spinning wildly just for me. It's when I allow my desires and my needs to supersede His will and His perfectly predestined plan.

Because what He needs is for me to be fully surrendered. What He needs from me are palms. Palms that are spread wide and faced upwardly. What He needs is for me to get out of the way so that I can look less like me and more like His Son.

And oh He sees me. Here struggling. Here waiting. Here fighting breathlessly for authority and control. And in goodness and mercy He waits until I move over so that He can move on.

Because that's the only way to do it. If I want to look more like Jesus I must empty my life of anything that screams ME. I must decide that His ways are greater.

“If any of you wants to be My follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow Me. If you try to hang on to your life you will lose it. But if you give up your life for My sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it.” {Mark 8:34-35}

So I pray with unclenched fists that God would take this life and make it great DESPITE me. That He would use me only if it brings Him the glory that He deserves.

Less of me... more Him.

 Finding JOY in the JOurneY,