When I feel frightened or overwhelmed, my first response tends to be self-reliance. But this has never gone well. In fact, the more I turn to myself–my faulty wisdom and insufficient strength–the more I distance myself from the mighty, loving, faithful hand of God. Not because He has or ever will push me away, but because in those moments, my pride and anxiety seem to speak louder than His voice.
I’ve heard from others that their greatest struggle is overcoming a conditioned response developed from years of relational hurt and betrayal. Due to past pain, they’ve come to equate trust with danger. While God understands, He also gently and lovingly invites them to experience the transforming power of His love.
I’ve discovered, beauty comes whenever I timidly release my grip on all those things I try so desperately to control and entrust my life, dreams, hurts, and fears, to my Savior’s care.
This is the promise Jesus made, “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it” (NIV).
At every moment, He beckons us to “lay down our lives,” not so that we would remain in the dust, but rather to place ourselves in a position for Jesus to pick us up and remove from within us everything that hinders His freedom giving Spirit.
In his book, The Holy Spirit Or Power From on High, Reverand A. B. Simpson tells a story about missionaries who shared a meal with an impoverished group of people. Prior to their arrival, the couple told their hosts to prepare for them their best feast. The woman of the home responded that she had nothing but a little fish to share. Still, the missionaries insisted she serve what she could.
Then, on the day of their “feast”, the couple, who were the guests, arrived with a dog sleigh filled with bundle after bundle of food, much more than needed for their shared meal.
This is a picture of what it means to lay down our lives. To lay down everything within us that doesn’t honor Christ, knowing that He always has good planned for us.
We give Him our selfishness, and in its place, receive the ability to love more freely, which results in deepened relationships.
We relinquish our pride, and in our humility, receive grace upon grace.
We hand over our bitterness, and experience soul deep freedom and a heart open to connection.
We relinquish our dysfunction and self-deception and take instead a healing and growth that radiates the loveliness of Christ for generations.
This is what I must remind myself of, in my most reluctant and frightened moments. Whatever Jesus asks of me, it is always to lead me to into a more thriving life. And when wounds and lies from my past challenge my trust, may I reflect upon the contrast presented in John 10:10 when Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
This reminds me, with every choice, that I’m heading in one of two directions– further from or closer to the thriving life my soul needs and craves.
