Experiencing God - Dying to Self

Recently, I was reading "My Utmost for His Highest" by Oswald Chambers, a daily devotional. In the Apr 21 devotional, titled "Don't Hurt the Lord," a few lines really jumped out and convicted me... (http://myutmost.org/04/0421.html)

In talking about our expectations of how God will move in our lives and reveal Himself to us and others, he says, "Other people see the manifestation, the child of God does not. We want to be conscious of God; we cannot be conscious of our consciousness and remain sane."

That is a very deep statement, but after reading it several times and thinking about it, I thought that it might be easiest to relate to the statement with the concept of humility. I've been known to offer the following as a joke: "I am the most humble person I know." I hope you can laugh with me as you realize how contradictory that statement is! But in context of O.C.'s statement above, we need to be conscious of humility, yet not conscious of our consciousness. What I mean is this: the thought should be “I want to be humble in this situation,” not “I know I am being humble in this situation.” Or better yet, just being humble without calling it humble ourselves…doing it naturally without humility being the goal. When you take the thought to the point of calling yourself humble, you are praising yourself and being less humble than you first intended. I wonder if that is the difference between being conscious of something and being conscious of our consciousness of something?

The most convicting statement in that devotional, though, was the following: "If we are asking God to give us experiences, or if conscious experience is in the road, we hurt the Lord."

I often want God to use me, and I ask Him to do so. But how often do we ask with the expectation that we might be used and be ok with never even knowing it? Don’t we usually conceptualize being used by God as some great and wonderful thing—not only for God and for others, but that we might experience it ourselves as we do His work? This may be the way God rewards us most of the time, but how utterly selfless is the request that we might be used by God, while being fully receptive to never even getting to experience it or even knowing it? Think about it: even in my most selfless requests to God for Him to use me in any way that He sees fit, with no regard to my own circumstances or personal desires, even then I almost always have at least a hint of selfishness…because I expect to see the work I am doing for Him, and I expect to be fulfilled by that. Now, it is true that in almost every circumstance those who have utterly sold-out to God and serving Him have had the greatest sense of fulfillment of any men…but that is inconsequential for our requests—it cannot be the motivation, or even the “kicker” that we perceive as good because of personal gain. What if we could place ourselves in such a selfless place that we would be willing to serve God in anything and everything that we do, trusting that He is doing His great things through our work, yet having absolutely no awareness to the good that is coming of it? What if we learned to become so selfless that we would commit to being a tool for God even if we never saw an ounce of fulfillment and success in our work for Him—if our only solace was our trust that He was doing things unseen to us, according to His promises? Wow, I can tell you that I don’t yet know how to make myself that selfless…but I sure would like to work toward it. It sounds grim, it sounds absolutely hard…but I know it is an attitude pleasing to God. And I do know that He loves me so much that He will allow me to share His joy and the fruits of the Spirit He places inside of me—but the struggle is to rid myself of those things as motivation and commit to Him because it is right, simple as that.

For those of us who are young in our faith, dying to self is extremely hard to do, or to even fully comprehend what it means. Jesus says in John 12:24-26, "I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me." Furthermore, Paul says in Galations 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." (More in Luke 9:23-25, Mark 8:34-36, Matt 16:24-26)

After you have started dying to worldly desires and sins, then begin to die to your own expectations of the future, then begin to die to what you might do any given day, then begin to die to everything else—there is often something that remains that should die. Even if we have died to self in all other ways and given our lives as service and sacrifice to God (which is a big if, in of itself), for many of us, including myself, there is an expectation of fulfillment through that. That somehow the experience will be fulfilling in of itself. But the very last part of us that we can give up is the expectation that through all of it, every good thing, we might not require such an experience, such a fulfillment…that we might be content to obey God in pure servanthood—that although God doesn’t usually deprive us of the rich joy that comes in serving Him and sharing in His sufferings, we would be willing to commit to Him even if it did require that depravation of joy—wouldn’t that be ultimately dying to self completely? That is what I am trying to communicate, what I know I will likely never comprehend or fully realize as a human on this earth, but what I would like to work toward. There is some comfort here: we know as we serve God and commit our lives to Him, He sends the Holy Spirit and the fruits of that Spirit are a wonderful experience: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galations 5:22-23). And the best news of all: Heaven awaits! Until then, I would like to learn how to embrace this attitude a little bit more every day.