“For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” [Matthew 16: 25]
Have you been contemplating a new year’s resolution for 2022? If you’re like me, I spend some time just after Christmas considering how I can change my daily life for the better in the coming year. But I always seem to put in a caveat that the changes cannot be at a significant expense to my daily routines or bank accounts. I typically want a big payoff from little investment.
I fully realize that this minimalist approach is not realistic for making any significant change to my life in any of the typical categories, e.g., physical, mental, emotional, financial, relational, and spiritual. As the wise man says, “…the more you put in, the more you get out”. But for me, I was a little anxious about going “all in” for 2022 on making big changes to my life right now. Considering the current state of the world, perhaps it would be best to remain steady as she goes, right?
However, despite my reticence for making changes in my life, about a week ago my new year’s resolution consideration took a dramatic turn. It all started when I began reading a book my wife gave me for Christmas two weeks earlier. After completing the first chapter my “Aha” moment occurred. My new year’s resolution consideration could now be settled. I decided to set into motion what I need to do to bring an end to my “Me”. And the book that brought out this revelation? The End of Me, by Pastor Kyle Idleman (Colorado Springs, CO, David C. Cook, 2015). Kyle is the Senior Pastor of Southeast Christian Church (SECC) in Louisville, Kentucky. My wife and I have been attending SECC for close to a year now.
Please don’t be alarmed, I am in good health and I’m not suicidal. For you see, The End of Me is not talking about physically dying. One may easily assume by the book’s title that it’s some kind of fictional story about how a person works through accepting their end of life due to cancer, or COVID 19, or some other fatal disease. Nope, it’s not about a physical death at all, but more about bringing an end to our inner “MEs”, the internal human psyche that make each of us unique individuals. Pastor Kyle’s book enlightened me on how my “Me” was blocking my path for obtaining a more abundant life by getting closer to God on this side of heaven.
And why is that? I have surmised that the more I focus on me, then the less I focus on God and His purpose for me. So if you’re like me, then your “Me” and my “Me” are all about, whom else, our “MEs”. I don’t know how your “Me” works, but whatever my “Me” desires, I will go to great lengths to satisfy. Despite my best efforts for resisting, there are times when my “Me” is more selfish than it should be, which means I’m less willing to share until my “Me” is fully satisfied. My wife says it’s because I did not attend kindergarten. Nevertheless, until just a few years ago, my “Me” was more focused on doing things to receive as many awards, accolades, and attention for my accomplishments as I could garner. At other times, my “Me” wanted to be (no, believed he was) right 100% of the time in offering solutions to any problem. Do you see the pattern here? It’s not about YOU; it’s all about ME. I suppose I can attribute this to being a “baby-boomer”, and thus a card-carrying member of the “ME” generation.
So what do you and I have to do to break through the obstacles of life, exit from the “Me” focus to find a more abundant life with God? Based on Pastor Kyle’s introspective recommendation, we have to be willing to give our lives to God. Not ending our physical life, but rather, surrendering our wants and needs to what God wants and needs of us. It’s no longer about our “MEs”. As the Scripture passage said earlier, we have to be willing to lose our life for Jesus’ sake to find a more abundant life with God. We need to be humble from God’s perspective.
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. In Matthew 26:10-13, we learn about a woman who was considered the lowest of low people in society who came uninvited to a Pharisees home where Jesus was having dinner. She knelt at Jesus’ feet, cried an enormous amount of tears, and washed His feet with those tears. She then broke a bottle of very expensive perfume over Jesus and anointed His body with it. All while doing this, she stayed focused on Jesus, not giving any concern about the other dinner guests or what they were thinking. In essence, she had nothing to lose, she didn’t care anymore what other people thought of her or what was “politically correct” in that situation. She had already come to the end of “her”. She was spiritually exhausted by the torments of her life, so she came to Jesus who was the only hope she had for restoring her spiritual life and who could give her peace. When you’re in the bottom of the well of life, there is only one way to look for salvation or rescue. Looking up is the only way out. She was looking up to Jesus for Him to be her way out of that life and into a more abundant, fulfilling life. We believe she found that new life in Jesus.
This woman in the Biblical account was totally empty. In contrast, I believe that if one continues to be “full of themselves”, i.e., prideful, self-important, arrogant, prejudiced, condescending, or judgmental, then there is little room for God to dwell in a person’s life. So to get to that level of spiritual exhaustion, emptiness, and helplessness in life as this woman was described kneeling before Jesus, we too must empty ourselves of ourselves in order to make room for God. I am reminded, “No servant is greater than his master.” [John 15:20]
Surrendering all of my will to embrace God’s will in my life is the only way to put my “Me” into the box and close the lid, which enables God, the great “potter” to mold and shape a new “Me” into what He wants me to be in order to serve His purpose for my life. The conversion process of humbling myself before God may take a long time, but the journey will be worth it when I can live a much more abundant, fulfilling life as a child of God.
One other important Scripture passage that has helped to drive this point home in my heart and mind comes from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. Paul said, “I have the right to do anything, [permissible]” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive [edifying].” [1 Corinthians 10:23] The teaching moment here is that no one should seek his/her own good, but rather the good of others.
In many instances, we rob ourselves of the opportunity to do good for others because this world tells us to settle for accepting what is considered “permissible”. What can I get away with to stay barely inside the laws or norms of society? Some people like to say, “If it doesn’t say I can’t do it, then I believe what I’m doing is permissible.” Nevertheless, just because some behaviors are “permissible” does not mean they are beneficial. For example, it is “permissible” to smoke cigarettes, but it’s not “beneficial” to the non-smokers around you. In other words, if it’s just permissible, the focus is on “Me”; but if it’s beneficial, the focus is on “You/Others”. It’s been proven that more people will follow a beneficial leader because that leader cares more about them, versus a permissible type person who will lead others in the wrong direction because that leader only cares about himself/herself.
I now believe that moving my “Me” from the former permissible level to the new beneficial level is where I can focus more on “You” and the needs, wants, desires of others to slowly enable me to bring an end to my “Me”. Putting the focus outside of myself will help me focus on God’s plans for me and lead me to that more abundant, spiritually fulfilling life and intimate relationship with God by doing His will. This communion with God will be far deeper than what I can see, touch, or feel. I believe that will bring about a feeling of true freedom, strength and peace beyond all understanding for my life. That’s my goal in life right now beginning in 2022.
In human terms, that may be the moment of achieving a peak experience in the level of self-actualization as described in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow describes a peak experience as:
“Feelings of limitless horizons opening up to the vision, the feeling of being simultaneously more powerful and also more helpless than one ever was before, the feeling of ecstasy and wonder and awe, the loss of placement in time and space with, finally, the conviction that something extremely important and valuable had happened, so that the person was to some extent transformed and strengthened in his/her daily life by such experiences.”
That peak experience of self-actualization in one’s life is when the person has a feeling of being completely humbled, changed and transformed. I believe that experience can only happen with God when we surrender our lives totally to His will. For me, that will be when the death of “Me” occurs in my life. That’s when my spiritual “Me” becomes exhausted and helpless, while simultaneously being humble to the extent for surrendering to the most powerful God who will transform my “Me” and change my life forever to become a positive impact to other people in His service. The “Death of Me” will then be the beginning of a new “Me” as I grow closer to God.
“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” [Jackie Robinson – #44]
Good luck with your New Year’s resolution in 2022. I have mine and I’m ready to get started.
Live, Love, Learn and Grow in Jesus!
Blessings,
Jerry
