The Vicious Cycle of Self

Everyone living has experienced hurt and sorrow.  There is a malevolent catharsis in recounting times in our past when our hearts were broken.  Feeling sorry for ourselves is one way of coping, but it is a deceptive, destructive path.  In the end we are left lower than before, choking back the vomit of shame, guilt, resentment, and bitterness. Acknowledgement of our pain and hurt is the first step to healing, and genuine healing of the soul is found only in Jesus Christ.  Because we have all been hurt, we all face the temptation of dwelling upon the wrongs done to us rather than the One who took my wrongs upon Himself.

During my life I have been hurt in many ways.  I have suffered from a broken heart many times.  I have been lied to, deceived, misjudged, ridiculed, and ignored.  I face the very real temptation to look upon hurtful moments and seasons in my life and brood over them.  When I try to logically make sense out of some things that have happened in my life decades ago, I am still at a loss to explain them.  I am no closer to definite conclusions on why God allowed things to happen.  The downward spiral into the murky darkness of self pity beckons, but I have already been down there.  It was a rotten, hopeless place to be.  It was Jesus every time who pulled me out, and I never want to go back again.  Thankfully, I don't have to!

If you don't know Jesus Christ as LORD and Saviour, what I'm saying likely doesn't make a shred of sense.  Because I have repented and trusted on Christ, His life is now mine.  By faith I have become a new creation in Him.  I testify to you and the whole world that Jesus has healed my broken heart many times.  He has bound up my wounds, dried my tears, and replaced fear and worry with peace and joy.  He has turned my mourning into rejoicing.  What is the secret to avoid the vicious cycle of self?  When thoughts of how you have been hurt flood into your mind and heart, turn your attention instead to the hurt and suffering Christ endured for your sake.  When we are burdened with cares and a root of bitterness begins to grow and you can only wonder, "Why God?  Why would you let that happen to me?"  In that moment I need only consider why Jesus suffered and died for me:  it was a revelation of divine love.  Romans 5:8 says, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."  By the grace of God, He has changed the way I think.

I am not suggesting that we ignore, bury, or deny the fact we have been hurt.  To the contrary, we must bare our hurts to God, admitting exactly how we feel, casting our cares upon Jesus because He cares for us.  If someone has hurt me accidentally or with malice, I need to freely forgive them because Jesus has freely forgiven me.  In releasing others from our bitterness we are also freed!  It is a truly amazing transformation that occurs when I remove my focus from myself and the wrongs done to me and look with adoration upon Jesus Christ.  It is by His stripes I am healed!  We are able to overcome the vicious cycle of self through Christ, and none other.

Laying Down Our Will to Embrace His

"I entreated Your favor with my whole heart; be merciful to me according to Your word."

Psalm 119:58

Even when we have learned, God continues to teach.  There is always a deeper level - a more personal application - for biblical truth beyond where we stand.  The necessity and value of an undivided heart is a theme I have often been reminded of lately.  Unless we come to a place of rest and complete neutrality on an issue when seeking God, clear direction from our heavenly Father will often elude us.  It is not that God has abandoned us, but our preferences cloud our judgment.  We can stumble through a self-induced fog, straining for clear vision of the path laid before us.  As long as we hold to our plans and ideas - even with the thought of bringing God glory - clarity of sight and sureness of footing will remain out of reach.

In wrestling with God over direction of my life and even the church, only after I wholly yielded myself to God's plan did the answer come.  I thought I had laid my will down through belief, but God's silence showed I had not.  After I repented and sought God's guidance with my whole heart, answers came so clearly through God's Word, confirmed through circumstances and others, and complete with the peace only found through the Holy Spirit.  The example for every Christian was held forth when Jesus laid down His will in the Garden of Gethsemane before He laid down His life.  We want to lay down our lives before we lay down our will, but we find we cannot.  We fight to lay down our lives.  We look for opportunities for sacrifice.  We grasp in vain for guidance, seeking open doors.  But until our will aligns wholly with the Father's will, we will suffer spiritual impotence and confusion.  I see two distinct "wills" in operation in my life:  God's will, and my will.  They are naturally opposed to one another in every respect.  I must first lay down my will in faith in God before I can fully rest in my Father's will.

If we see the folly in casting valuable pearls before pigs who cannot discern or appreciate their value, why do we think that God will lead us into deeper truth and understanding when we are firmly set in our own ways according to our will?  Jeremiah 29:13 reads, "And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart."  If we trust God will our souls for eternity, we should completely trust His guidance for our next step in this life.  We must therefore put aside our agendas, opinions, and ambition concerning what we see and seek the LORD wholeheartedly with willingness to hear AND obey whatever God says.  Because Christ is the Good Shepherd, He will hear our cries and lead us into safe pasture.  He will be merciful to us according to His Word!

The Narrow Way

The longer I follow Christ, the more I am struck by His objective claims.  The world says there are "many paths to God," but the Bible proclaims the opposite.  In our modern-day culture of relativity, people hate the idea of anyone claiming to possess absolute truth.  That is why people hated Jesus.  He stood up to the religious leaders of the day, boldly proclaiming He was the Son of God.  He transcended all earthly rulers in wisdom and power.  He performed mighty signs and wonders, and rose from the dead in glory.  He said without apology or caveat in John 14:6:  "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."  No politician, prophet, or lunatic spoke as this Man.  In Christ we find no comfortable middle ground with this world.

Following Jesus Christ is an exclusive, narrow way.  He will receive every sinner who repents and receives Him through faith.  The Gospel is incredibly simple, yet it is the hard way.  Christ's yoke is easy and His burden light, but the broad path to destruction is easier traveled than the upward call of God.  The way of Jesus Christ is an uncompromising way.  Because of this, it is an impractical way for anyone who desires earthly recognition, fame, power, or glory.  Yet it goes further.  It is an intolerable way.  People have no problem with Christians when they resemble the soft, weak, mushy persona that often passes for Jesus.  But when Christians take a stand upon the Bible as the literal Word of God concerning moral issues in society, they are fiercely attacked and despised.  It is an impossible, unthinkable way.  Following Jesus in obedience makes foolishness appear wise from a worldly perspective.  Those who have tasted and seen that God is good know better!

God's way is the only way, and that Way is Jesus Christ.  Exclusive and narrow, yes.  Narrow is not a bad thing when you are heading precisely in the right direction!  While the world searches fruitlessly for love, peace, joy, significance, assurance, and purpose, these things are found in Christ alone.  1 John 5:11-12:  "And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. ¹² He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life."  Notice the lack of words like "might," "may," "possibly," or "hopefully."  God has given eternal life and this life is in Jesus Christ.  Unmistakably direct and clear:  there is a God and He has provided a Way to heaven through Jesus.  He who has the Son has life, and those without the Son of God do not have life.  Clear, precise, and concise.  There is the claim; take it or leave it.  Laugh it off, fight against it, rage against the idea, hurl insult after insult.  But the truth resounds now and for eternity, for the Word of God endures forever.

The preaching of the cross is foolishness to those who worship the creature over the Creator, but to those who are saved it is the power of God.  Romans 10:8-9 reads, "But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith which we preach): ⁹ that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."  Believe, confess your sins, repent, and be saved, becoming born again through the Holy Spirit.  Jesus is not one of many doors to heaven, but He is the Door through whom all who enter heaven must enter.  Jesus says in John 10:9-10:  "I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. ¹⁰ The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly."  Rely upon Christ Jesus and choose life!

Singing in the Fire

While busy with custodial duties at church, I was listening to a talk by Britt Merrick, pastor of Reality Carpinteria.  He spoke from experience about how joy and suffering are coupled in the Christian life.  Instead of God removing suffering from life, He allows Christians to embrace genuine joy in the midst of suffering.  Just yesterday I finished reading a biography of Mrs. Spurgeon by Charles Ray.  Susannah was a godly woman who not only endured suffering, but continued to persevere and be profitable for God's glory in the midst of acute long-term illness.  She was a woman of maturity and faith, one who learned to trust in God no matter what.  In the book, there is an object lesson she shares which spoke deeply to my heart.  Ray begins this quote from Susannah on page 81:

At the close of a very dark and gloomy day I lay resting on my couch as the deeper night drew on, and though all was bright within my cosy little room, some of the external darkness seemed to have entered into my soul and obscured its spiritual vision.  Vainly I tried to see the hand which I knew held mine and guided my fog-enveloped feet along a steep and slippery path of suffering.  In sorrow of heart I asked, 'Why does my Lord thus deal with His child?  Why does He so often send sharp and bitter pain to visit me?  Why does he permit lingering weakness to hinder the sweet service I long to render to His poor servants?'  These fretful questions were quickly answered, and though in a strange language, no interpreter was needed save the conscious whisper of my own heart.

For a while silence reigned in the little room, broken only by the crackling of an oak log burning on the hearth.  Suddenly I heard a sweet, soft sound, a little, clear, musical note, like the tender trill of a robin beneath my window.  'What can it be?' I said to my companion, who was dozing in the firelight; 'surely no bird can be singing out there at this time of the year and night!'  We listened, and again heard the faint plaintive notes, so sweet, so melodious, yet mysterious enough to provoke for a moment our undisguised wonder.  Presently my friend exclaimed, 'It comes from the log of the fire!' and we soon ascertained that her surprised assertion was correct.  The fire was letting loose the imprisoned music from the old oak's inmost heart.  Perchance he had garnered up this song in the days when all went well with him, when birds twittered merrily on his branches, and the soft sunlight flecked his tender leaves with gold; but he had grown old since then and hardened; ring after ring of knotting growth had sealed up the long-forgotten melody until the fierce tongues of the flames came to consume his callousness and the vehement heat of the fire wrung from him at once a song and a sacrifice.

Oh! thought I, when the fire of affliction draws songs of praise from us, then indeed are we purified and our God is glorified!  Perhaps some of us are like this old oak log - cold, hard and insensible; we should give forth no melodious sounds were it not for the fire which kindles round us, and releases tender notes of trust in Him, and cheerful compliance with His will.  As I mused the fire burned and my soul found sweet comfort in the parable so strangely set forth before me.  Singing in the fire!  Yes, God helping us if that is the only way to get harmony out of these hard, apathetic hearts, let the furnace be heated seven times hotter than before.

When God sees fit to refine us in the fire, may the Holy Spirit quicken us to praise Him!  May the joy of the LORD be our strength always!