Home from Wales – A Prayer for Humility and Death (to self)
Some of you have asked for a report on our trip to Wales, especially the retreat at the Llangasty Retreat Center near the town of Brecon in the Brecon Beacons. We just walked in the door to our new home in NC, so here is a brief report. More to come. It was strange entering the US at Charlotte instead of Houston, but other than that it was a good homecoming.
The trip from start to finish was entirely a work of God. During every part of our journey to, through, in, and back from the UK Judy and I saw the mighty hand of God at work. The weather, the people, the car rental (which was a miracle), our hotels, and, of course, the retreat were all amazing and wonderful. We met with old friends (Gus and Helen), new friends (Robbie and Hannah – technically she is a new new friend but after spending an hour with that strong woman of God we felt like we had known her for far longer). And we made wonderful new friends at the retreat. It was an opportunity to hear from God and to pour into the lives of many of those we met a message of encouragement.
The retreat was a time of personal spiritual reflection and growth; and to sit under teaching about the Kingdom of God and healing, two topics close to my heart, as many of you know. Tonight I want to share a prayer that we spoke on the final day of the retreat at a powerful Service of Rededication. You have read words like these before. But there is a simplicity and brutal honesty in these words that capture the essence of what that week was like for me.
“I am no longer my own, but Yours.
Your will, not mine, be done in all things:
Put me to what You will, rank me with whom You will;
put me to doing, put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you or laid aside for You,
exalted for You, or brought low for You;
let me be full, let me be empty;
let me have all things, let me have nothing;
I willingly offer all that I have and all that I am to serve You
as and where You choose.”
Do I really want to pray these words? If I pray them, can I live them? Certainly not in my power. But if I keep my eyes on Jesus and the Cross, if I continually repent of the things in my life that pull me back into the kingdom of self, and if I rely on the Holy Spirit, I can grow into the man exemplified by this prayer. And that is a good goal. But…
These words, if taken literally, are frightening for most Christians and completely inexplicable to the rest of the world. The problem is that if we truly lived these words we would have to (possibly) give up the things that give us our ultimate value and acceptance as human beings. We would have to give up the things that give us life, as we are living it today, itself. There is death in these words; difficult, painful, heart-rending death.
The ultimate need of every human being is to be valued and accepted. It is no good denying or diminishing this – it is a fact. Life is fragile but also fiercely tenacious. We will find our value and acceptance somewhere in this life and when we do we will hold on to it ‘for dear life’ because it is our life. Christians are especially good at this because we find this value in ‘ministry’. I reckon that most of the ministry done by the Church in America today is not done to glorify God but for the value and acceptance that it gives the Christians doing the ministry. And incidentally, it provides us a context for judging others. If you spend a significant percentage of your time and money helping others or doing some other ministry, you are judged good. If not, well…
This prayer is a call to give up even ministry if it is not done totally for His glory. I must die to the doing, striving, accomplishing, producing, performing mentality in ministry and life because that is often where my value comes from. And, as I said above, it is the context that I use to judge others. Oh, we are subtle about this. But if we are honest with ourselves, we judge and therefore rank people according to their accomplishments and work. And this is not the Kingdom of God; it is the kingdom of self, the kingdom of doing. And in the kingdom of doing, there is no room for slackers. Slackers are out (but who is the slacker?)!
The only acceptance that gives life is my total acceptance by God. Mans quest to be valued and honored by men and himself is the most life-crushing slavery that we can live under. Even life in a concentration camp is possible if I have this other acceptance, which is why the most powerful tool Satan has to destroy your life is to convince you that you are not accepted by, or acceptable to, God. I am valued and totally accepted by God because of His son Jesus and the cross. For NO other reason. If I am finding my ultimate acceptance in ANYTHING other than Christ, I am living in the kingdom of self. My first step as a Christian is to ‘work’ this truth into my life (which is a daily and life-long process) in partnership with the Holy Spirit – always involving repentance. My goal is to live out this prayer, to root out the ‘self’. The problem is we don’t always know what that means. We think, for example, that if I am serving the poor everyday, I am selfless. The exact opposite may be true. If I am serving the poor (or any other ministry) because that is where I find my value and acceptance, at least in my own eyes, then I am selfish and prideful. And too often we live this life of service because the real devaluing in our lives is too painful to face.
What is the truth? Yes, God has called us individually and collectively to work for His Kingdom. We are not supposed to sit on the couch and play video games or sleep all day. We are called to action. But first, we are called to action entirely for His glory, and not ours. This is a subtle but profound difference; one which Satan can easily distort. We cannot tell the difference (and it is a critical difference) if we take our eyes off of the cross of Christ. We must be connected minute-by-minute as the vine is to the branch. No connection, no life. And this connection is not necessarily about going to church, reading the Bible, etc. Yes, it is about these things; but it is about the prayer above – about a spirit of humility and a deep, intimate friendship with Jesus. It is just not knowing about Jesus. It is, in the words of Paul “Christ, who is your life”.
Out of this life, God will use me to do His Kingdom work. Maybe it will be works of service. But it often is a life of internal work – not visible to the world around, but profoundly impacting that world – by releasing the Kingdom of God into a family, neighborhood, town, city, region, or nation (or all the above) through prayer. Maybe it is quietly mentoring one young person. Maybe it is the ministry of presence – being present for a child or grandchild. Who knows. It might be very small or very large. But that is up to God and therefore we must always see it as a gift. It is easy for the world to see one person, church, or ministry as a success or failure based on money raised, budget, number of members, people touched by the ministry, or fame and wealth. That is not God’s point of view. We are ‘successful’ when we do whatever God calls us to do with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Period. Whether what we do succeeds or fails is up to Him.
One thing I know about this work that God calls us to: it will always be about the Kingdom. That is God’s heart. It will always be rooted completely in Jesus, will always point to the cross (and not to me), will always bring people from spiritual darkness into light, will always produce spiritual, emotional, or physical healing (or all three); will always provide for more than purely physical needs (although those needs are important to Jesus also – but in and of themselves are not the Kingdom); it will always be restorative, it will always be a witness to the power and glory of God. It will always have ‘Heaven’ in it. And it will be for the healing of the nations, not just the ‘in-crowd’.
God wants us to open the door for Him to come in and minister. God wants us to create the room He needs to release His power. He will do the amazing work of healing and making whole, of restoring, if we will allow it to be about Him and not about us.
God has called each of us to this purpose. But none of us, no matter how committed we are to a particular ministry or way of life, can partner effectively with God to accomplish His purposes in Creation until we take seriously and commit to living the life that we are asking God to give us in the prayer at the top of this post.
Hallelujah.
God bless you, dear friends. And thank you for your prayers while we were in Wales. They were answered 100 fold.