It’s Not About You

Walking the side streets of our sweet, historic hometown, I couldn’t help but feel like I was on the set of a Hallmark movie. The annual music festival was in full swing. The sun peeked in and out of the picture-perfect clouds. Tambourines rattled. Banjos twanged. Children ran about giggling and dancing. I walked beside my husband as our baby girl sat perched up in her stroller attentively watching the beauty unfold on this gorgeous summer day…

And then I heard it.

“He loves us! Ohhhh, how he loves us……….”

The distant sound of a familiar song broke my heavenly trance, and my head turned like a hound dog at the faintest sound of its prey.

Must. Find. Music.

I don’t remember if I turned to my husband to explain the pip in my step or if he just knew what I was after.

We had been driving about an hour away to attend a church. As much as I loved our quaint hometown, the church scene seemed a little outdated upon returning home from the modern church I attended in college. The average age of most congregations was probably about 65; contemporary music apparently hadn’t reached us yet; and there were no smoke machines to help me enter into my deeply spiritual state. (I hope you can sense my sarcasm here.) The idea of finding a local church and NOT having a 2-hour roundtrip commute every Sunday had me giddy.

I knew we were getting closer as the music crescendoed, and we found the little band transitioning into another one my favorite worship songs down a cobblestone alley.

I walked up to the booth, eyes shimmering. After talking to someone for just a few minutes, we were sold. We attended the church that following Sunday, and I couldn’t wait to share my excitement with the pastor. As we met him in the aisle after the service closed out, I shared all the same things with him that I shared with you. POOR ME has been driving SO FAR to attend a quality church like this!! And HERE IT IS! Right under my nose. HALLELUJAH!

I explained why I couldn’t settle for one of the other churches in our little town. Afterall, I was used to GOOD worship. Worship that included more than a piano and a hymnal. Worship that gave me chills. Worship that left me weeping. I expressed that his church provided that, and I assumed he would be glowing and thankful for the words of affirmation.

Instead, the conversation went in a different direction as he dropped ten words that changed my life.

“Well, worship isn’t about you. It was never about you.”

OUCH.

I embarrassingly stuttered, “Of course! It’s about God!” (Duh. Christianity101, right?) But the rest of our interaction is a blur as I was likely recovering from the shock of his words. I was coming to grips with this truth as I simultaneously tried to finish out the conversation without appearing to have my feelings hurt too bad.

His tone wasn’t hateful or rude. It was firm and loving. Just like my favorite teacher in high school who also mastered that beautiful balance between truth and love. These are the people I want to sit under and learn from, and this is the person I strive to be. Someone who will say the hard things when the Lord calls us to it, but also a person whose love screams louder. After all, these are the people that are truly heard because ‘faithful are the wounds of a friend.’

As much as that hurt to hear, it was true. I say Christianity101 like it’s a basic concept that this life is not about us. But often, our lives tell a different story. If we take an honest look at the thoughts that roll through our minds on a daily basis, we are blaspheming the very basis of the gospel by allowing our wants, our desires, and our comfort to run the show. As Christians, we are called to lay down our lives – not just in the literal sense of being willing to die for His truth, but even more so, in the thousands of little deaths to our will that we face on a daily basis.

It was such a comfort to me to realize that even Jesus himself had to die to his own will. As he fell on his face in the Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” The example of Christ provides us the most beautiful picture of what happens when we die to ourselves. When we set ourselves aside trusting that His ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:8), we get out of the way and allow God to use our daily deaths to produce life.

Jesus said in John 12:24-25, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat fall into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

I have seen this concept play out in little picture stories throughout my life.

• IN A LITERAL SENSE: The wonder and surprise that erupt when we go to clean up the garden in early spring, only to find that the herbs that were left to die have now given birth to several seedlings.
• IN A PHYSICAL SENSE: The bodily death us women endure during childbirth, only to be handed a teeny tiny human bursting with life. Quite possibly the most miraculous physical example of this concept.
• IN A SPIRITUAL SENSE: Dying to our will only to see the life and beauty God produces from the ashes of our pride. This is the one we have the privilege of seeing the fruit of most often if we allow it.

As a woman in a world where our emotions are constantly validated, I have carried Pastor Eddie’s words like a treasure close to my heart. This has become the most enduring theme of my life, and a huge reason why I started this blog. I have realized that the most transformative moments of my life were born out of people saying hard truths to me. Most people would find Pastor Eddie’s words offensive, but they are simple and plain truth rooted in the Bible.

Our culture has convinced many of us that we ARE the center of our own universe. In a day when suicide is the second leading cause of death for teens, we convince ourselves that the message young people need to hear is that they are ENOUGH. But I may ruffle some feathers to say that I believe the key to our children’s emotional and spiritual health is to make sure they know they are NOT enough…but that there is Someone who is.

If we can establish this truth, we hand our children the keys to true freedom. I so desperately want our kids to grasp this concept knowing that it will serve as the foundation for them to develop into selfless, resilient and steadfast people who profess Christ with their life…People who accept disappointment with resolve knowing that God works all things together for good. When we struggle, we can rest in the fact that He can see the finish line while we can only see the bumpy road before us.

So, how do we help our children grasp this? What does that look like practically?

I was given a book by one of my best friends years ago whom I have since lost to cancer. Embarrassingly, I have picked it up twice, only to get about five pages in and turn my attention to something else. But within those five pages is one of the most transformative quotes outside of the Bible itself, and I believe it answers this very question:

But the High Places of victory and union with Christ cannot be reached by any mental reckoning of self to be dead to sin, or by seeking to devise some way or discipline by which the will can be crucified. The only way is by learning to accept, day by day, the actual conditions and tests permitted by God, by a continually repeated laying down of our own will and acceptance of his as it is presented to us in the form of the people with whom we have to live and work, and in the things which happen to us. Every acceptance of his will becomes an altar of sacrifice, and every such surrender and abandonment of ourselves to his will is a means of furthering us on the way to the High Places to which he desires to bring every child of his while they are still living on earth.

-Hinds’ Feet on High Places (pg. vi) Yes, the preface. I told you I didn’t get very far.

I hope this quote hits your heart as hard as it hit mine. So simple, yet so profound: ACCEPT WHATEVER THE LORD HAS PLACED BEFORE YOU.

In the past, whenever my kids would gripe and groan about something, I would often point them towards people who have it much worse and hope that the reality of children starving somewhere in Africa or living in active warzones would sober their minds and that reality would shake their hearts towards gratitude. But that kind of misses the point. It’s not about who has it worse. It’s about how we handle what’s set before us. Afterall, we might be able to convince ourselves that WE have it the worst. Trust me, when a moment of chaos ensues in our little house filled with children and I have yet to get out of my breastmilk-soaked robe, my hair is wild, and I have been trying to make it to the bathroom for the past three hours, I can convince myself that I have it THE WORST. Afterall, ‘perspective is reality’, right? We are all going to have situations placed before us that we wouldn’t choose to walk through…people in our lives we would rather not have to deal with. But the point is HOW are you going to walk through that valley? Will you gripe and groan like the Israelites in the desert? Or will you build an alter of sacrifice for the Lord, declaring his providence and goodness over the situation and walk through it with confidence that God has you there for a reason?

Aside from allowing those hardships to be alter of sacrifice, the Bible tells us that we can even consider those bumps in the road a blessing – even a JOY:

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. -James 1:2-4

It goes even further to say we can rejoice in our hardships, and it helps us to recognize the beautiful progression from suffering to HOPE:

But we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. – Romans 5:3-5

So, as a mom of many, I must continually shift my mindset as I watch my kiddos walk through hard things remembering that it is producing in them endurance, character, and hope through the Holy Spirit. My mama heart naturally wants to make things as EASY as possible for them…despite knowing that is the WORST thing for them. Catering to their every desire sets them up for massive disappointment as they grow into adults. If we shield them from these small moments of hardship, we miss out on the opportunity to strengthen their resolve.

We, my husband and I, happen to believe that the most fertile atmosphere for healthy hardships are provided right here within the home. There are about 2,973,193 reasons why we choose to let God dictate the size of our family, but one of the biggest being to benefit the character of each of our children. We believe there is no better reason to thwart our own desires than for that of another. It is through the natural environment of the family that we are continually handed opportunity after opportunity to die to ourselves…And likewise, countless opportunities for true joy 😊

Let me finish this out with a fun story about my husband, Domenick. Has your husband ever tried to compliment you by calling you a river rock?? You’re probably as confused as I was initially. I remember thinking, “Where is he going with this??” and yet it is by far one of the kindest things he has ever said about me. He went on to describe me as a sharp and jagged rock when he first met me. I know…HOW ROMANTIC! But he extrapolated saying that as I have been pulled down the river by the current called LIFE, many of my sharp edges have been smoothed over. (Personal Sidenote: Many more edges to be smoothed!) Very little of that transformation that he has witnessed over our years of knowing one another is due to my own will, but instead more so to a release or a submission to His will. I have met a few rocks in my life who are still sharp and jagged despite being on this earth for many years. They fight the current, clinging onto the riverbed to avoid the bumps and fears of the river. Oftentimes they had a parent who even scooped them up out of the river to protect them. Either way, they remain the same jagged rock they always were.

So don’t take the current from your children. Let them bounce off the bottom of the river enough times that they lose those sharp edges. And when they don’t want to clean up the floor, remind them they don’t have to WANT to. When they don’t WANT to eat what’s on their dinner plate, remind them that they don’t have to WANT to. When they WANT to have their way, remind that their way is not always THE way. Remind them of our Perfect Example – our Lord Jesus Christ who said, ‘Not as I will, but as YOU will.’

Until next time, keep chewing, ladies 😊