Why the process of abandoning is so important (part 1)
We have a false self and a true self. The false self is a function of:
- our accomplishments
- what others say about us
- our externally-derived significance
- an identity built around temporal things
All of this is noise and clamor obscuring the reality of who we really are.
Our true self is our internal “spirit-man” that exists without the applause and acclaim.
Our true self doesn’t need to be puffed up. When all the soccer trophies and plaques on the wall are stripped away, the true self is unphased.
Our noisy society that expects its children to have their own websites, cell phones, and computers sets us up to travel backwards through our lives, starting out unsullied and pristine, but continually and ever more habitually, substituting a fabricated version of reality for the facts.
One of the key tasks in life is to know oneself independent of the trophies, voices, and club memberships. To do this, we have to strip it all away. Sometimes in his mercy, God allows all the falderal to be cleaned out of our lives.
The typical human response to this is to beat one’s fists against the divine chest and ask “Why me?”
Addicted to comforts and happy with our false self, we interpret the pain that attends this stripping away as a punishment. For example, although I’d begun the abandoning process by leaving the comforts of home and family at 21 for life in Indonesia, it wasn’t until I was 31, when I lost my job, my sense of success, and had a meltdown that I completed the process of abandoning. While I cooperated with him, instead of appreciating what God was doing in my life, I recited the script of a victim, focusing on the people he’d used as tools to do his work in me.
Better to detox the false self when you’re young. My hypothesis is that it takes at least a year. Jesus took three years with his disciples to detox them and they still were guilty of foolishness in the end (e.g. Peter and the rooster).
Difficult enough in an era of simplicity; in this era of complication, the process of abandoning our ego props becomes an essential initial phase in the initiation of a Jesus-follower, a process that we know as “discipleship.”
The AA meeting attendees know what I’m talking about – the rest of us are addicts of another sort – we all need that kind of raw honesty about life and our place in it.
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Ok, I love this sentence,
Our noisy society that expects its children to have their own web sites, cell phones, and computers sets us up to travel backwards through our lives, starting out unsullied and pristine, but continually and ever more habitually, substituting a fabricated version of reality for the facts..
I THINK I know what it means…
It takes a year… This resonates with me, and I want it. But what does that look like? How do I /choose/ abandonment? Practically, what needs to happen?
good questions, that’s why parts 2, 3 and 4 are to follow in this series!
Thanks Seth…that is great and so true. It is funny how the Lord can teach us this while we are waiting on Him. Also…thanks for the video in the previous blog…it is wonderful to have our eyes continually opened to the needs that are all around us!
Caroline
well said! God has shown me these glimpses of that…at 23 being laid off, unemployed. and feeling this desperate sense of who am i outside of what i do??? trying to find answers in doing – what felt like an endless search. thanks for writing this
Jane,
God bless you as you search! I was laid off at 24 and felt so low. It was hard. I wish I’d realized or been told that really, your 20’s are all an experiment. So, don’t feel like you have to follow a conventional road. Discovering your identity in the Kingdom needs to precede discovering your role in building the Kingdom. We have it backwards here in America!
seth
SETH – as per my last blog. I think this series is beautiful. Thank you!
Hmm, all of your comments are nice and supporting….do you DELETE anything that contradicts your ideas?
You Said “Jesus took three years with his disciples to detox them and they still were guilty of foolishness in the end (e.g. Peter and the rooster).” Well, Jesus didn’t let just anyone be his disciple..(Luke 14:26)
Its amazing how people having touble in thier lives look skyward for thier savior. Its too bad the victims of the crusades, witch burnings, and countless others tortured and murdered by christians didn’t see it your way.
Keep looking to the skies when you feel like an inadaquate human because someone “invented something new”.
Perhaps you feel old because science and technology are advancing beyond your everyday comprehension. Lets convince ourselves that our deity hates it, and make ourselves important by condeming others!! Afterall, like EVERY other generation before us thought, we think we ARE the last one. God will be here any minute!
Interesting points here, Jeremy. Let’s look at each of your 3 comments:
1. No, I don’t delete comments – go look at the comments on the Jehovah Witness blog I wrote – they are still there. We’re not afraid of differing points of view here. Perhaps the fact that you’d suggest that right off the bat says more about your perspective than mine.
2. I’m not apologist for organized religion on this blog (the abusers of “the faith”) – in fact, most of the time, I’m pointing out issues that complicate the working out of our faith.
3. Another comment that seems patronizing – I actually am fascinated by technology and have deployed it to spread the gospel and love people at every opportunity that seems appropriate.
Thank you brother. I have been playing the victim now for some time myself. Left my job, had to move into smaller home, driving cheap vehicles, etc. I was desiring all along to serve God in ministry, and wasn’t understanding why doors were not opening, while everything around me seemed to be falling apart. I’m realizing God’s work in bringing me closer to Him, and putting my “false self” away.