Stripping Away Me

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? – Mark 8:35-36

I prayed a bold prayer.

I asked God to strip me of me and fill me with Him.

I didn’t realize it would hurt this much.

I’m prideful and independent and stubborn and selfish and I don’t like losing. Especially when what I’m losing is myself. And as I shed the layers of myself, I don’t like seeing the ugliness that my heart is capable of producing.

All at once, a ministry that I have poured my time and my heart into felt like it was collapsing under my feet.

A well-intentioned request for input from a friend felt like a threat to the “safety bubble” I have strategically placed myself within.

All the while, dealing with so many uncertainties in my near and distant future.

Will God provide us with a home, where my kids can have their own space, but which won’t put me in a financial bind?

With my vehicle, my washing machine, and my computer all seemingly near death, will I be slammed with the expenses of having to replace all of them at the same time?

Am I being faithful and obedient, and am I really where God wants me as I begin a new semester in ministry?

Will the Steelers win the Super Bowl?

(Ok, so I guess the answer to that last one isn’t so uncertain… there’s always next season…)

With each unanswered question comes a follow-up question:

Regardless of how the answer plays out, do I trust that God will provide?

He promises He will. But it’s according to the riches of HIS glory – not mine.

And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus. – Philippians 4:19

With my ministry, when things seem to be unraveling, I start to feel responsible. I feel like a failure. I feel inadequate. I feel rejected – both by people and by God. I feel incapable. And sometimes, I feel like giving up.

With my “safety bubble” being pressed upon, I feel the potential for it to pop – leaving me exposed and vulnerable in front of people I don’t know well enough to trust. I feel like my relationships inside the bubble are being threatened. I feel like retreating into a self-imposed solitary confinement as a means of protecting myself from whatever I sense is threatening my security.

In both scenarios, God has something to show me. I continue to look too much toward myself, and not enough toward Him.

I find myself using words like “me”… “my”… “I”… “I”… “I”…

When I should be saying “You”… “Your”… and each of my “I”s  should be followed by a “surrender”.

And He reminds me that He’s not doing anything I haven’t asked Him to do. He’s stripping away the layers of me so that I can clothe myself in layers of Him. And as painful as it is some days to be stripped down and ripped apart, in the end, the glory of His righteousness will shine through my life more brightly than any layer of myself ever could.

And as I allow Him to do His work in me, I hold tightly to the promise and the pronouncement of 1 Peter 5:10-11:

And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To HIM be the power forever and ever.