Winning!!! (Part Two – Less Self)

“You’ll know you’re winning when you are no longer thinking about yourself.” There is more to the story. It always amazes me that Evil found a way to corrupt humanity, then in humanity’s weakened and corrupted state, somehow focused the rest of man’s energy on what was wrong with him in that very state Evil initiated. The painful irony and audacity. Since that fateful day, man has spent his years trying to get back what he lost by improving his own merits. I’m not sure he always wants to get better, but rather feels compelled to behave so in order to persuade God concerning some important need, marked more by compulsion than by love. It reminds me of the famous scene in “The End” where Burt Reynolds is bargaining with God via promises to do better or change his life if God will save him. That seems to accurately sum up what people think the relationship is with God. And not surprisingly as the overwhelming majority of religion remains concentrated on the same, false merit based system. And, the focus will never be on God, but instead on you and what might be wrong with you; what you need to improve; what you need to give up; what you need to change; why God won’t answer your prayers or what sins you might have in your life preventing your prayers from getting through. Though it seems to be the greatest secret in the world, God forever solved your sin problem for you. You didn’t solve it nor could you have ever solved it. Again the audacity of Evil to suggest otherwise. The goal of evil in subjecting you to almost constant accusation and judgments is not to reform you, but rather to anchor you to a false identity; a false conclusion; the notion that you must somehow prove your own worthiness or make yourself right before God. Brother! Sister! Doing such is a deception and a complete theft of both your life and your mind. It’s heart disease in your real heart. Instead of spending your life on earth fearing God and feeling compelled to do things you do not want to do, God had a better idea. He would give you and me a complete substitute for everything that was ever wrong with us thus making us forever acceptable in His sight. The end of the struggle, not with sin, but in investing too much time thinking about ourselves, judging ourselves, evaluating ourselves, scouring our motives, hypervigilant for errors and mistakes leading to potential disapproval and mostly being way too damn caught up in ourselves. God does not want your focus to be on yourself, at least not in a negative way, but rather on Him as the source life. “You’ll know you’re winning when you are no longer thinking about yourself.”

The reason you do not or are not getting your prayers answered is because you are doggedly cleaving to the merit-based system you learned. And because that system is merit-based, what you do and do not do or do and should not have done or should have done but you didn’t do (phew), matters. You think God blesses you because of your goodness, which you logically don’t feel you have enough of, and therefore you will not get blessed until you can somehow do better or get better or discipline yourself more and say “no” more and resist more (again phew)! Evil did a bang up job on this one. God does not bless anyone because of their goodness. He blesses people because He so loves them and wants to help them. His answer is always yes for your sakes. But, and this is very dramatic, as long as your focus remains on yourself you will not get your needs met or at best some meager supply. You cannot spend your existence thinking about what might be wrong with you. Wrong, wrong focus. There is no spiritual need for you to constantly examine and scrutinize your every move. And while healthy introspection is good, especially when you involve God in it, trying to live your life and thoroughly evaluate it at the same time is impossible. And don’t even get me started on endless self-judgments bleeding into judgments for everyone else as well. Can you conceive living that way would be God’s will for your life. That is not life. That is bondage. That is someone that has fallen prey to the myth of the merit-based system. God rewards and blesses believing; believing Him. He solved your sin and separation from Him problems forever so you could finally take a deep breath and let it all go; the need to prove your value; the need to demonstrate your worth; the need to perform and earn and strive and drive yourself fucking nuts! Oh my God, let it all go. Just put your whole trust in Him to take care of your life and get busy living again. “You’ll know you’re winning when you are no longer thinking about yourself.”

I’ll close by offering that no one is saying there is no longer any need to strive to do good and to avoid evil and its predictable pain, in order to live a quiet and peaceable life. I’m saying you need to get the focus off yourself. Stop thinking about yourself and what you might be doing wrong.  Stop continuing to be a slave to sin inadvertently worshipping its source. “Get your focus off yourself and your shortcomings and on to the Father where it belongs.” God accepts you now. He loves you. He gave you the gift of righteousness, not based on your own works, but on the work of His dear son. You are saved by grace, not by works, so why spend another fruitless moment judging your own works. Maybe you were wrong on occasion, but at least you loved yourself along the way. When you can let self go, then you can really start to live. “You’ll know you’re winning when you are no longer thinking about yourself.”

Just some good thoughts…