'Finding yourself'

Where am I? Who am I? What is my purpose? 


Whether we label it or not, most young people at some stage go through some period of wondering who they are and where they are going. And a good number of not-so-young people too.


Finding yourself. We want to discover who we really are, and so we pursue experiences and a life that is meant to help us define ourselves, help us discover what makes us, us.


I did that. I thought I needed to know who I was by finding it out, searching everywhere.  Chalk the mistakes up to 'experience'. Nothing is bad. Do what I want. Be 'true to myself'.


The problem is, finding yourself doesn't actually help you know who you are or what your purpose is. Find yourself, and what have you got? A flawed imperfect person, searching for something.


The irony, the paradox of following Christ is that to 'find yourself' you really have to lose yourself. 


The world tells us that to find ourselves and our purpose we have to do the things we want, gain things for ourselves, have experiences for ourselves. 


God tells us that we have to deny ourselves. Lay down our lives. “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me." Luke 9:23


That seems to hard to us, because it is so contrary to everything we are told. We are told it's all about self. Self-esteem. Self-confidence. Self-worth. The problem with those things is that the focus is on the Self part, rather than the part that comes after the little dash. Esteem, confidence, worth.


Those things are not found in ourselves, but in God.


The question then is, do you trust God with your life. Are you willing to let go of 'finding yourself' and trust that God already knows who you are, wholly and completely and deeply? Do you trust that will provide you with all the worth and purpose that you need?


And are you willing to risk losing your life to save it?


"For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it." Luke 9:24

The biggest defences around our biggest insecurities

It's funny how often the things we feel like we least have to worry about, turn out to be the things that trip us up. Did I say funny? I meant ironic and annoying.


It could be the old 'pride before a fall' - we stop paying attention because we think it's all ok, and it gets away from us.


But sometimes it's because we are fooling ourselves.


Have you ever heard someone boasting about their skills and talents? Telling you how great their life is? If you don't immediately dismiss them thinking they are conceited and just don't know how to be humble, you may get the sneaking suspicion that they aren't all as together as their bluster is trying to prove.


We do this to ourselves, and it's a lot harder to pick. You rarely ignore yourself for being boastful and blustery.


What do you find yourself justifying? For what aspects of your life do you find yourself coming up with convincing arguments about why it's all ok? What are the biggest obelisks of personal pride in your life, the things that you will hold on to no matter what anyone else says? The things you are tempted to pursue and continue, even if others don't like it? The things you to which you say 'they just don't understand'?


Chances are, if you have to have conversations with yourself about something, you're putting up defences. 


We build the biggest defences around our biggest insecurities. 


I have been learning how to examine myself this year - to pull apart all my thoughts on shopping (through Project 3:11), on travelling and other dreams I equated with my identity and worth, on family life, marriage and being a woman.


In all these areas there were things that I was guarding and protecting, putting up fronts to convince everyone that I was secure in who I was. The problem with putting up a facade of security is that behind the scenes you are denying yourself the chance to actually be who you are. Who God created you to be.


We often pick up things - experiences, beliefs, behaviours - that at one time made us feel a spark of confidence, of self worth, of meaning and purpose. They did it once, and so we carry them with us, continuing to pursue those things hoping they will continue to work.


They may have started as good things. The problem is, we turn the things - our talents, our dreams, our ideas - into the objects of our pursuit instead of the One who gave us those things. And while we are busy chasing things that rapidly lose any ability to define us like they once did - and were only a pale reflections to begin with - we are missing the chance to get the real thing.


What have you put the biggest defences around? What are you holding on to most tightly to make you feel secure in who you think you are, or are meant to be?


If it's anything other than your identity and worth in God, then maybe it's time to examine these idols.


For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. 1 Corinthians 3:11-13


It's not easy. I notice some things that feel so ingrained, so embedded in the bedrock of my emotional foundation, that it feels horribly unnerving to even imagine dislodging them.


But the amazing thing is, I don't have to do it alone. In most cases, I don't even have to do it at all.


If we start trying to pull everything apart ourselves, we will just end up dismantling our lives and being left with rubble. But if we are willing to surrender to God, to open our inmost selves up to Him, then he will take those things that aren't meant to be there and remove them. He takes those things out with more precision than the most skilled surgeon.


There have been things in my life that I have felt like I was struggling with forever, that I was convinced I would struggle with forever - nothing I tried seemed to be able to change it - and then in one moment with God...it was gone.


And unlike surgery, there hasn't been more damage done. You don't have to lie for weeks in a hospital bed and hope you don't get an infection.


And what you realise is, that thing you thought was to big, too foundational, too ingrained to move without everything else crumbling - you were never actually relying on it after all. Your self worth and value wasn't built on it at all. It was a false foundation. All this time you were built on God; everything is resting on him.


Any time God takes something out of our lives, it's a paradox. Normally if you take something away, there's a hole, an emptiness, a lack. But with God, if he takes it away, that space is filled with more of Him. You realise that thing you thought was too important to let go of, that you relied on too much to give over, was actually making you feel less worthy, less satisfied, less whole.


If you look around your life and notice some whopping great defences, don't be afraid to look behind them. Let God in to those places and you won't regret it.


Without those, you give God more room to fill your life with His purpose. The real thing is always better than a pale imitation.


Lay it down. Aren't you tired of carrying that heavy burden all by yourself? Aren't you tired of trying to hold up those defences?


I beg you to offer your lives as a living sacrifice to him. Romans 12:1 


My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Psalm 73:26


"Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new Spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you". Ezekiel 36:26-27.

Reformed Clay

"So I went down to the potter's house and saw him working at the potter's wheel. He was using his hands to make a pot from clay, but something went wrong with it...." (Jeremiah 18:3-4a)


Something went wrong. How many of us can look back on our lives, on the way things have turned out, on the way we have turned out, and think - something went wrong.


We feel marred, like a deformed clay pot. We can think back over the things we have done in our lives, the mistakes we've made, the people we wanted to be but somehow didn't turn into like we once dreamed.


Something went wrong. We are that clay pot.


But you know what the potter did with it? 


Well I can first tell you what he didn't do.


1. He didn't scrap it. He didn't chuck it out. He didn't say "That's ruined. Oh well, I'll just chuck it on the rubbish pile and move on to something else."


2. He didn't leave it as it was. He didn't leave it to limp through life as a substandard pot, to be looked down on and neglected because it's no good for anything.


What he did do:


"So he used that clay to make another pot the way he wanted it to be." 




In case you hadn't got it yet, you are clay. God is a potter. 


Maybe things haven't turned out the way you wanted. Maybe you aren't the person you wanted to be, you haven't reached those dreams you used to hold. Something's gone wrong.


But you are clay in the potter's hand. God can take you and reform you. He is not going to scrap you. No matter how damaged you are, you are never beyond redeeming by God. Never. You are soft clay. Clay is malleable. And you are in the hands of the master potter.


He is not going to leave you as you are. God is not going to leave you to suffer because of your mistakes, because of the way life has misshapen you and damaged you. The mistakes may be of your own doing, or the actions of others. But God is not going to leave you limping through life, not being able to live up to the purpose you were intended for.


He can take your life and reshape it. He will form it into something beautiful, something with purpose. A masterpiece. He will shape it the way he wants it.


God is the potter. You are the clay. He can take everything that feels damaged, ugly and broken, and reform it. Not just patch it up or make it 'good enough'. Reform it.


Once clay is reshaped by the master potter, there is no trace of the old, the damaged. You are a new creation. A new, beautiful masterpiece from the very hands of God, exactly as he wanted you to be.


He can do that with your life.

Seek and you will find - but what are you looking for?

Have you ever sought hard, earnestly, til you hurt...and then nothing happened. It makes you wonder, where exactly is God? What about all that 'seek and you will find' business, huh?

God does say that we when seek after him, he will be found. So what's going on?

And at times like that, when we feel let down, we know that God says he'll never leave us or forsake us, but it can be hard to really understand it.

But it doesn't seem to "work" - when I seek and don't seem to find God, perhaps I was actually looking for myself and not for God at all.

Worship is about glorifying God, and yet how often do we come away thinking about what we did or didn't get from it, how we felt, what God did for us?

Seek and you will find. It's true. But what are we looking for? If we look for ourselves, we're always going to find it. And we'll always be disappointed. Because our spirit longs for God.

Just a thought...

Refiner's fire

   I will refine them like silver
   and test them like gold.
(Zechariah 13:9)

Being made pure and refined by God is a beautiful thing. Think of the beauty and value of pure gold and pure silver. Something pure is free from imperfections and blemishes and things to dilute or marr it.

But think of how gold is purified. It may be melted in fire many times over before it is completely free of impurities.

Now, fire. That doesn't seem so pretty. So the actually becoming pure - not so easy. It will mean testing. It will mean the heat will be on. It will mean that a lot of impurities may come to the surface to be removed.

But that's the important part - they will be removed, burned away. And what is left is pure. What is left is you, as God created you to be, without all the junk.

The fire does not destroy you. It does not burn indescriminantly. It only burns away what is not meant to be there. The process of refining is worth the end result.

Loud surrender

My surrender isn't always quiet and peaceful, hands raised in worship, tears of joy on my face. That is beautiful and lovely.

But I don't always feel quiet and peaceful inside. And I think God gets that.

Sometimes I forget that he created me and sees everything. So I try to put on a face, and say the things that are politically correct. Like, "God, I know I'm meant to be patient and at peace, and so that's what I'm going to do. Here I am, patient and at peace."

When really I'm boiling over inside. I'm a hurricane of emotions. I forget that God doesn't want my polite platitudes. He's not fooled. He can already see what's inside and he's saying "why are you trying to hold on to that all by yourself. Let it go. Give it to me."

So lately I've been consciously making the choice to say to God exactly what's on my mind, not just what I think should be on my mind. If I'm mad, I'll tell him. If I'm frustrated, I'll tell him. If I can't understand what is going on, I'll tell him. Even if I'm mad at him, even if I'm frustrated at him, even if I don't understand what he's doing. I tell him all that. He knows it anyway, do I think I'm hiding it from him?

So my surrender is sometimes loud and physical. If I'm by myself it might be outwardly like that, but mostly it's in my head, in my spirit. Sometimes to surrender I have to bash down a wall in my heart first.

God is big. He can take our little fists beating against his chest. And better that he takes it all than we let it out on someone else, or hold it all inside until we implode. And he holds on to us, so we can't hurt ourselves, and when we've let it all out we can just rest in his arms.

I say to God my Rock, "Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?" My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, "Where is your God?" Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God (Psalm 42:9-11).




Peace and joy. (Romans 5:1-11)

Jessie.


But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.