SELF: LOSE IT OR LOSE IT.

The thing we mostly don’t like about us turns out to be the very thing we fiercely offer devotion to preserve: SELF. God calls us to lose self and we nearly resent Him for it. Absolutely, we resist Him on it. Yet, as we keep self around we complain about it, fight with it, and oft times curse it. We get sick of self, but think of it always with emphatic priority. We dream of victory for self, attention for self, and popularity for self. When we are the most selfish we are the most miserable and we don’t need professional analysis to chart it.

Self has to be one of the greatest ironies. Keep me in front of the line, but don’t let anyone see me. Do things the way I want, but don’t call on me as I’m far too weak to lead. I’ll quickly and confidently point out what others surely lack, while self is absorbed in the highest of restraining insecurities. I am capable of living in assertive criticism of others while scared to death of my own shadow. I’m a bully in attitude and cowardly when it comes to needed action. Self goes with me everywhere I go and often ruins everything. We carry on a ridiculous romance with a self we often find we very much dislike.

Take courage. Leap. Throw self away so the person you wish to be can be handed back to you by God. If one loses his life he saves it and if he saves it he loses it…..every time. You are good enough for God to choose. He picked some weird nutcases to work His kind of field. God defies what we regard as normal or even revered. From cover to meandering biblical cover, God selects the oddest kind to do His most powerful work. Cowards hid under vines while red-necks wore wilderness garb…all preparing the path for the One who would not fit the human code of success.

Jesus is brilliant! He ruined ruin! He slaughtered slaughter. He reversed an irreversible course. Of all the odd ducks, we get to walk in the aftermath of His genius. God gave us Jesus’ mind. We have it. We are enough in Him. This Self who wants to hide in career and remain unaccountable to any who might slightly suggest needed alteration is the very Self God ordains to beat Hell with a stick and lead masses to Heaven; never realizing we made any move worth reporting. We simply believe as Obadiah and Esther and Silly Peter that the living God works marvel in the weird and most unstable zone called Self.

Self….lose it or lose it. Lose it now or lose it later. It’s simply got to go.