how to become your truest self

Opening Prayer: Lord, unless you move in us we have no hope.  Until you reveal yourself to us, and reveal us to ourselves, we can never really know who you are or who we truly are.  Lord, have mercy.  Give us the strength and the grace and the courage to wait for you.

Scripture: Psalm 130:5-7

Journal: Why do you think the scriptures tell us to “wait for the Lord” so often?  How are waiting for the Lord and spiritually transformation related?

Reflection: “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.  My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.” (Psalm 130:5-6)

We spend far too much time in this life trying to fortify a manufactured self, rather than allowing God to peel away all of the accumulated layers of falseness, so he can show us what is most true and beautiful.  This cannot be done by trying, but by trusting.  It will not happen by endless effort and willpower and activity, but by learning how to wait for the Lord.

The secret to becoming our truest selves always involves waiting for the Lord.  If we do not wait, we will never become who and what we were meant to be.  We can’t force or contrive of manufacture of control our own transformation, it is a work of the Spirit.  All we can do is wait—make time and space to sit openly before him as he does the work, in his own time and in his own way.

One hint, however: our truest self will always result in us looking more and more like Jesus, who “made himself nothing,” rather than trying to make himself something. (Philippians 2:7) Thus, only when we stop trying to “make ourselves something" and start trying to “make ourselves nothing” can we ever hope to find our truest selves.  We find our lives by losing them. (Mt. 10:39) We find our truest self, by letting go of all of the false selves that we have somehow convinced ourselves through the years are true.  And, irony of ironies, it is not until my life stops being about me that I can ever hope to discover who I truly am.  In the kingdom of God, we always have to “die to become.”

Pray

Closing Prayer: Help me, O Lord, to learn what it means to wait for you.  And help me to resist the temptation to think everything—even my own transformation—is up to me.  Amen.

deeper and norrower

Opening Prayer: Help me never, O God, to be afraid to sacrifice breadth in order to get depth.  You want so much more for me than a life that’s a mile wide and an inch deep.

Scripture: Psalm 42:7

Journal: How is God inviting you into a deeper life with him?  What does it look like?  Will you accept his invitation?

Reflection: “Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.” (Ps. 42:7)

The depths of God is constantly calling out to the depths of man, inviting him deeper into the beauty and the mystery of who He is.  God does not want us to settle for less of a life than the one he created us for, but, unfortunately, oftentimes we do.  We grow content and comfortable with the safe and familiar, and are afraid of what it might mean, or what it might take, for us to enter into the life and the depth and the freedom God offers us.

Thus, there comes, for each of us, a moment of decision, when we must decide whether we will follow the voice of the One calling us deeper and narrower, or settle for a life that’s a mile wide and an inch deep.  There is definitely a process involved that leads us to this moment, but there always comes a moment when a decision must be made.  A moment when we must choose to move, to cross the bridge to the other side, to take his hand as he leads us toward a new and unknown land, or to stay where we are.  A moment when we must choose between the comfortable and the familiar or a new life and a new birth.  It’s one or the other, we can’t have both.  So, what will it be?

Prayer

Closing Prayer: O God, thank you that your depths is constantly calling out to my depths, inviting me further into the beauty and the mystery of who you are.  Give me the strength and the grace and the courage to say yes to that call.

 

old and new

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you that you offer to make us new.  Give us the courage and the strength and the grace to let go of the old.

Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:17

Journal: Where and how are you still clinging to the old?  How is that keeping your from the new?

Reflection: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old is gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

As long as we continue to cling to the old, we will never be able to take hold of the new.

Pray

Closing Prayer: Show me, Lord Jesus, all of the ways I am still clinging to the old, in order that I might be made new.

living with open hands

Opening Prayer: Open my hands and my heart, O Lord, to you, and to all that you long to do in and through me.

Scripture: Mark 10:21

Journal: How is God asking you to open your hands these days?  What would it look like to live your life that way?  Where do you sense clenched fists?  How are they hindering the life of God from growing within you?

Reflection: Life with God is about learning to open our hands.  The only problem is that hands—particularly the hands of the soul—tend to open slowly, often one finger at a time.  It is a long process, requiring much time and space and focused attention.  A process that requires as much patience as it does diligence.

While life (particularly spiritual life) typically moves from orientation to disorientation to reorientation, our knee-jerk reaction to disruption and disorientation is to revert back to—or strive to achieve—some old form of orientation, rather than allowing it to usher us into something that is new and beautiful.  And when we do this, it is almost always destined for failure, frustration, or, even worse, stagnation.  We cannot cling to our old ways and think that growth can still be a possibility.

“Clinging creates a shrinking within the soul,” writes Sue Monk Kidd, “a shrinking of possibility and growth.  The need to cling to ‘how it was’ can be overpowering.”  God wants so much more for us than that.  In fact, he is always calling us beyond where we are, not back to where we were.  Clinging to the old always seems to result in an inability to welcome the new and beautiful.

Pray

Closing Prayer: Show me, O Lord, what I need to let go of, how I need to open the hands of my soul in order to be able to go wherever you lead and do whatever you ask.

 

believe and know

Opening Prayer: Thank you, Lord Jesus that you have the words of eternal life.  Help us to listen to them, so that we might believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.

Scripture: John 6:60-69

Journal: What happens to your faith when things get hard?  Why?  What would it look like to have a faith that is unshakeable?  What part does “knowing” play in that?

Reflection: “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:68-69)

Years ago, a young couple who are dear friends of ours were going through a significant life struggle.  The pain and desperation were both devastating and overwhelming.  When I asked the husband how he was dealing with the struggle and the heartache, he replied, “At first I was tempted to get mad at God, but then he said to me, ‘We’re past that now, aren’t we?’  And he was right.”  He had come to understand God, and God’s goodness in a deep and profound way.  He didn’t just believe that God was good, he knew that goodness.

I think that’s what Simon Peter was saying right here.  After all, many of Jesus’ disciples had “turned back and no longer followed him,” but Simon Peter had stayed.  What was the difference?  I think the difference was that Simon Peter, just like my young friend, not only believed in the goodness of God, but he knew it—he had experienced it firsthand in a deep and profound way. 

To believe (pisteuō) means to be fully persuaded of, and to know (ginōskō) means to become intimately acquainted with.  One without the other will not suffice.  It is not enough just to know intellectually.  In order to truly believe, we must also know relationally.  We will never be convinced of the goodness of God’s heart until we have experienced that goodness firsthand.  It is this relational knowing that anchors our intellectual believing in a deep trust in, and experience of, his goodness.  That’s why Simon Peter just couldn’t walk away; he knew better.  His response was not, “I have no other choice,” but, “I know, I know, I know, that you are good, whatever this life may bring.”  May we be the same.

Pray

Closing Prayer: We know, we know, we know, O God, that you are good—whatever life may bring.

yield

Opening Prayer: Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you yielded up your life for us.  Help us to have the courage and the strength and the grace to do the same for you.  Amen.

Scripture: Matthew 27:50

Journal:  Where and how is God asking you to yield to him these days?  Will you?

Reflection: “And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.” (Mt. 27:50, ESV)

If you look up the word yield in the dictionary, it will say “to give up or over; to relinquish or resign; to surrender.”  And if you look at the Greek word used here by Matthew (aphiēmi) it means “to let go, let alone, let be; to give up.”

True confession time: I am not a great yielder.  I am not good at letting go of my rights, privileges, preferences, plans, or agendas, for the sake of another.  In fact, whenever I see a yield sign on the road, my knee-jerk response is, “If I get there first, then they will have to yield.”

Yet here in Matthew we see our Savior yielding up the most precious thing of all, his very life.  He lets go of his rights and privileges and preferences for our sakes.  And then he has the audacity to tell us that if we really want to follow him, we must do the same.

Oswald Chambers said it well when he said: “He never asks us to decide for Him, but to yield to him—a very different thing.”  Life with Jesus is not about conquering, but about yielding; something he tried to get the disciples to understand time after time.  And now it’s our turn.

Pray

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, teach us what it means to yield up our lives to you as you did for us.

poor in spirit

Opening Prayer: Forgive me, Lord Jesus, when I try to raise myself high rather than crouch low.  For only when I learn to crouch low will I be truly blessed.

Scripture: Matthew 5:3

Journal: What does it mean to be poor in spirit?  How do we embrace that posture?

Reflection: “Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 5:3)  

What does it really mean to be poor in spirit?  The word poor in the Greek is ptōchos, which means “to crouch; to lower oneself; to take the posture of a beggar; to be lacking anything.”  It is both a realization and a choice.  Thus, those who are poor in spirit have chosen, like Jesus did, to make themselves nothing.  And since they are not concerned with building their own kingdom, they can be fully given to the kingdom of God.

Pray

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, teach us what it means to be poor in spirit, so that we can become more like you.  Amen.

a fertile emptiness

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, forgive me for all the ways I try to be something.  Give me the strength and the courage and the grace to make myself mothing instead.  Help me to become more and more like you every day.  Amen.

Scripture: Philippians 2:5-8

Journal: How do you try to make yourself something?  How is Jesus asking you to make yourself nothing?  What does that look like?  Will you?

Reflection:

a fertile emptiness

if you really want to be like me

the way you say you do

then let go of every way

you try to make yourself something

and make yourself nothing instead

just like i did

                           ~jesus

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, I’m afraid that if I really emptied myself of all the ways I try to be something, there might not be anything left.  Which might be exactly what you are looking for.  Maybe that’s the kind of emptiness you want; the kind of emptiness that you can fill with yourself—a fertile emptiness.