Thursday, February 26, 2009

Angst-filled brokenness

Today as I sat to pray for some friends of mine, I felt overwhelmed by the fact that I needed to come clean with God first.

My worst sin is pride. And as I began to break down and weep in front of God, I remembered the resolution I made at the beginning of the year. "For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2)

That has been my prayer for quite some time. To actually eliminate my 'self' and know only Christ in my life. For someone like me that is quite a struggle! And lately, it seems as if everything is conspiring to break me from that resolve.

Now, here's the deal. I consciously made a decision to break with the world of success. I did it after hearing God tell me that wasn't where He wanted me to be. So, I can hear Him when He tells me 'No' if I ask about participating in the world again.

My sin lies in questioning where I am at, the fears the come up and the insistence that my self-confidence is more important than my relationship with God.

For instance, I have found a lot of old friends on Facebook from both high school and college. No matter what they are doing, most claim to be finding fulfillment and success. They proclaim it loudly. How do you suppose I respond when asked what it is that I do? Do you suppose that I say, "I'm waiting on God right now. He wants to break all of my reliance on self so that I rely only on him."? No, I cover it by saying that I am taking some time to do writing and working towards a Master's Degree. And oh, they are ever so impressed with that.

My friends are planning to gather again to prepare worship in a location that I left several years ago. The best thing I had going musically in years is regrouping and I can't be a part of it. It is killing me personally, but in so many different ways, God has shown me that I am not supposed to be active in this.

Even my writing trips me up. When I walk away from the actual writing and think about the blog and the bible studies, etc., I find myself driven to be success oriented. How can I build my blog so that more and more people will read what I write. And then, at what point can I begin accepting minimal advertising and at what point will I be able to point to that blog and its success as I enter into discussions with publishers?

To be honest, as soon as those thoughts hit my mind, the niggling fears of self-doubt enter as well. It's quite the battle in there. But, the battle is between two sides that shouldn't exist in any case. Whether or not my writing is any good is not what this is supposed to be about.

So, I began to lay this out in front of God. I don't want to wait until He has to do the breaking and it hurts in a very bad way. I'm going to try to nip my 'self' in the bud right now. And I'm going to fail miserably. I don't know how to stop the need for accolades and appreciation. I don't know how to stop being prideful. I don't know how to stop desiring success. I don't know how to make it all about Him and not at all about me. I don't know how to 'know Jesus Christ and him crucified' only.

Here's the rub ... as soon as I laid this in front of Him and began wondering how He was going to continue to break me down ... I wondered about the time after that - would that be when the success finally came? Yup, He and I have a lot of work ahead of us.

1 comment:

Lonnie said...

Hey lady! I have not set up a way to let me know when someone comments on my blog. And I have been a little deliquent in posting. Just found your comments!

1. A 1st Shirt is the parental unit in the squadron - takes care of personal issues that memebers have (Red Cross notifications, hospital escort if needed, that sort of stuff.

2. Found a spot on Steve's lung after he fell of the roof and broke 3 ribs. After a set of x-rays and 2 ct scans, they were still unsure. So, yesterday he had a bronchoscopy to biopsy the mass. No reults yet.

3. Really missing my Omaha friends. They are like family. Amber F & Stacey D were here in Aug to go to Beth Moore. I refused to join the church the Sunday they were here becuase it felt so wrong to join a new church in front of them. READ - I miss Omaha and my life there.

Gotta run - how do you set up notices if someone comments????

Miss you too!!!!