Self out of Self
Finally finished unpacking the suitcases. A mound of laundry awaits me in the garage. It calls to me, but I ignore it…until our drawers start screaming from hungry emptiness, like when I can’t find another pair of underwear.
But I hear the Lord calling to me now. He wants to teach me something.
Do you ever feel like a slow learner sometimes? I never considered myself a slow learner, really. Not in school. Not growing up in Sunday school. Concepts and information stuck pretty quickly, for the most part, as long as I had a good instructor who cared enough to make the information accessible and delivered it in a caring way. I had most of the answers to the questions, and if I didn’t, most everyone else was lost along with me.
For some reason, though, I feel like I’m a slow learner when it comes to spiritual things. I’m moving along in my spiritual walk like a snail inches his way across a hose, dawdling ever so sluggishly (no pun intended). I know where I should be with Him. I understand what my attitude needs to be. I see other Christians and long to be more like them, more mature, slower to anger, at peace in trying circumstances. I just cannot seem to put myself in any faster of a lane. I’m stuck in the slow lane, behind semis and tractor trailers, watching others glide quickly past me.
I think that is why the Lord illustrates His points in such demonstrable ways for me. He knows I’m a slow visual learner, spiritually, and He gives me tangible examples for this walk, or rather, trudge, I’m on.
Parenting is one of those concrete illustrations for me. There is nothing like parenting to take the self out of self. You cannot dodge it, pretend it, run from it. It just simply will be. You learn very quickly to live for someone other than yourself. Nothing makes you grow up faster than holding your first child in your arms and caring for him or her yourself. With each child, that selflessness is even more pronounced. With my first I could still get away with passing the buck of responsibility to those overjoyed new grandparents, just waiting on bated breath to be asked to help. When my second came along, she shared the spotlight with her sister in the eyes of her people, but the light was only so wide, and Mommy was forced, and rightfully so, to do more of the job of mommying.
As I await the birth of this new child, I know that time for myself will become even more precious. I begin to open my arms, slowly, of course, embracing the work of selflessness God is doing in my heart. There is nothing else to do but this. If I buck it, my road will be that much more difficult. It cannot be escaped. It can happen with meek submissiveness, or it can happen with tenacious struggling and pain.
I know it is good for me; it sometimes, though, feels like tearing a Band-Aid off of my skin very slowly. It doesn’t want to be removed, but it must. The more I embrace it, the more content I will be, the more I will grow closer to Him. This is what He wants. The more selfless I become, the more like Him I become.
This is only good.
But I hear the Lord calling to me now. He wants to teach me something.
Do you ever feel like a slow learner sometimes? I never considered myself a slow learner, really. Not in school. Not growing up in Sunday school. Concepts and information stuck pretty quickly, for the most part, as long as I had a good instructor who cared enough to make the information accessible and delivered it in a caring way. I had most of the answers to the questions, and if I didn’t, most everyone else was lost along with me.
For some reason, though, I feel like I’m a slow learner when it comes to spiritual things. I’m moving along in my spiritual walk like a snail inches his way across a hose, dawdling ever so sluggishly (no pun intended). I know where I should be with Him. I understand what my attitude needs to be. I see other Christians and long to be more like them, more mature, slower to anger, at peace in trying circumstances. I just cannot seem to put myself in any faster of a lane. I’m stuck in the slow lane, behind semis and tractor trailers, watching others glide quickly past me.
I think that is why the Lord illustrates His points in such demonstrable ways for me. He knows I’m a slow visual learner, spiritually, and He gives me tangible examples for this walk, or rather, trudge, I’m on.
Parenting is one of those concrete illustrations for me. There is nothing like parenting to take the self out of self. You cannot dodge it, pretend it, run from it. It just simply will be. You learn very quickly to live for someone other than yourself. Nothing makes you grow up faster than holding your first child in your arms and caring for him or her yourself. With each child, that selflessness is even more pronounced. With my first I could still get away with passing the buck of responsibility to those overjoyed new grandparents, just waiting on bated breath to be asked to help. When my second came along, she shared the spotlight with her sister in the eyes of her people, but the light was only so wide, and Mommy was forced, and rightfully so, to do more of the job of mommying.
As I await the birth of this new child, I know that time for myself will become even more precious. I begin to open my arms, slowly, of course, embracing the work of selflessness God is doing in my heart. There is nothing else to do but this. If I buck it, my road will be that much more difficult. It cannot be escaped. It can happen with meek submissiveness, or it can happen with tenacious struggling and pain.
I know it is good for me; it sometimes, though, feels like tearing a Band-Aid off of my skin very slowly. It doesn’t want to be removed, but it must. The more I embrace it, the more content I will be, the more I will grow closer to Him. This is what He wants. The more selfless I become, the more like Him I become.
This is only good.
Comments