Decreasing for His Purpose

As the year 2011 came to a close and as I finished reading the entire Bible in a year, I realized that a chapter in my journey with God was nearing its end only to continue quickly to a new chapter. As I mentioned in one of my first blog posts, our entire lives are made up of one chapter after another in which the focus is always knowing God!  For the last year or more, the Lord was very clearly teaching me about His Holiness (which must be separate from my sinfulness), about how much and all the ways He delights in me, about spiritual discernment in all things so long as I'm seeking Him, about the inerrant Truth of His Word and how every part of His Word fits together perfectly.  I love these things that my Lord was teaching me, and it gave me some amazing vistas into the heart of God. However, as you yield your heart to know God in one area, He does not let His relationship with you be stagnant - He is always working, always teaching, always delighting in you, always asking for your obedience, and always being faithful to His love and relationship with you.

As the year 2012 began, I quickly began to realize that a new chapter was starting in my journey of knowing the Living God!  The beginning of these new chapters is probably the most difficult because if you are walking with God, you start discerning the things that God is trying to teach you...and they are almost never easy things for us to learn because we have to break our minds away from our human perspective and logic and raise our minds to getting the mind of Christ -- this means we have to repeatedly confront our sin nature and lay down our innate pride.  It soon became apparent to me that the things God would be teaching me about Himself next were His Will for me regarding ministry and prayer...two things that are not exactly my strong points. I realized that to learn about these things, I would have to face the following:

* my introverted nature - a difficulty both for ministry and praying with/for others
* my own inner doubts about the power of prayer
* my desire to "fix" every problem and my frustration when I fail at reaching someone

What I didn't realize until the last few weeks recently was that I would have to learn another tough lesson before I could "progress" much further in my journey of knowing God in ministry and prayer.  I would have to learn to "decrease for His purpose."  Several things in my life brought this point to light in my heart in the last few weeks:  one of my devotions from "My Utmost For His Highest," some songs, some conversations, and some Bible verses that I've come across.

Below is the March 24th devotion in "My Utmost For His Highest" in which God first brought this message to light in my heart; I balked when I first read this and my first human instinct was to walk away and ignore what I read because it was uncomfortable; I didn't like it. But God kept resurfacing this message in my life through songs, Bible verses, and conversations. I suddenly realized that I essentially had two options:  face it with the perspective of Christ and remain in my journey with the Lord, or I could walk away, ignore it, live in disobedience to the Lord, and go no further in my learning about the Lord or prayer or ministry for the Lord. God was gentle, but firm, in His reminders to me that I would need to learn this difficult lesson; I am now in a state where I'm trying to yield my heart though it is difficult at times.  The devotion was called Decreasing For His Purpose:

Focus verse:  John 3:30:  "He must increase, but I must decrease."
"If you become a necessity to someone else's life, you are out of God's will. As a servant, your primary responsibility is to be a "friend of the bridegroom" (3:29). When you see a person who is close to grasping the claims of Jesus Christ, you know that your influence has been used in the right direction. And when you begin to see that person in the middle of a difficult and painful struggle, don't try to prevent it, but pray that his difficulty will grow even ten times stronger, until no power on earth or in hell could hold him away from Jesus Christ. Over and over again, we try to be amateur providences in someone's life. We are indeed amateurs, coming in and actually preventing God's will and saying, "This person should not have to experience this difficulty." Instead of being friends of the Bridegroom, our sympathy gets in the way. One day that person will say to us, "You are a thief; you stole my desire to follow Jesus, and because of you I lost sight of Him." <ouch>

Beware of rejoicing with someone over the wrong thing, but always look to rejoice over the right thing "...the friend of the bridegroom...rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease" (3:29-30). This was spoken with joy, not with sadness--at last they were to see the Bridegroom! And John said this was his joy. It represents a stepping aside, an absolute removal of the servant, never to be thought of again.

Listen intently with your entire being until you hear the Bridegroom's voice in the life of another person. And never give any thought to what devastation, difficulties, or sickness it will bring. Just rejoice with godly excitement that His voice has been heard. You may often have to watch Jesus Christ wreck a life before He saves it. (see Matthew 10:34)."

After reading this devotion, I thought "Wow, God - is this right? How can I truly follow this precept in my heart? You already know and have helped me with my esteem struggles." The Lord impressed upon me: "Do I not always delight in you?  Have I not always been faithful? You must trust Me and you must learn this." This was a difficult devotion for me especially because of the complex that I've developed over the years -- my difficulty with feeling like I'm well-loved or well-liked or feeling like I have much to offer/share with others. God has been helping me overcome this complex with His Grace and He continues to show me how He delights in me!  Even so, He has made it clear that this is not a lesson that I can ignore. I think it was especially the last few sentences of the devotion that spoke to my heart that helped me realize the truth of this devotion; I knew the truth behind the last part of the devotion because He had done this in my life, for which I am so grateful! I can't agree with part of God's Truth and not all of it. God's Word and His Truth is not a buffet where I can pick and choose what I like and don't like. So, God continued to prod at my heart in other ways to help me face this difficult point. The Bible Verse of the Day that was at the top of my blog on April 16th matched this recurring theme that I've been seeing in my life right now about me becoming less while the Lord increases:

"Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it."  Mark 8:34-35  (NIV) 

Humbling myself:  the prideful part of me really struggles with this. I'm not sure yet if the Lord is teaching me this to prepare my heart and mind for a specific situation or if He is teaching me to have this attitude in general.

I also heard this same message in some of the lyrics from the song "How Deep the Father's Love for Us":

"It was my sin that held him there / until it was accomplished;
His dying breath has brought me life / I know that it is finished.
I will not boast in anything / no gifts, no power, no wisdom,
but I will boast in Jesus Christ / His death and resurrection!
Why should I gain from His reward? / I cannot give an answer.
But this I know with all my heart:  His wounds have paid my ransom!"

I have nothing to boast about except for my salvation through Jesus Christ!!  It is difficult to yield my pride and my desire to be well-liked and admired, etc., and I pray that I can lay all of this aside to be not only a vessel for Christ, but a light that eventually illuminates Jesus Christ and not Letisha. I pray that as God continues to teach me about these things, I will be willing to lay my self aside for His Glory!