Get To The End
A question has been rattling around in me brain today, almost since the moment I woke up: What do you find when you get to the end of yourself? When you have traveled down the road to self for so long what does life look like when you get to the end of yourself? For many I would think that the end isn’t until the end. But if that is true, then that person would have spent their entire life wrapped up in themselves, if the end of themselves isn’t found until the end of life (literally the end of themselves).
I think that perhaps one of the keys of this following Jesus thing is to get out of the way of myself long enough to see others. To see their needs, to cry their tears, feel their pain, and then to intentionally put their needs ahead of mine. I might be beginning to understand that we all have to die many deaths to get to the end of ourselves.
Isaiah said “Generous people plan to do what is generous and they stand firm in their generosity.” Isaiah 32:8 NLT
I think that takes getting to the end of me.
posted by C.M. Coon at Wednesday, November 30, 2005
4 Comments:
Putting others needs in front of our own is simple to do from time to time. However, to always put others first is nearly impossible. Think about the person you cut off today, or the person that you wouldn't let ahead of you. What about your neighbor who can't shovel his sidwalk? And on and on. God gives us many opportunities to die to ourselves, but we often walk right by...
what abou beyond the people that we notice and neglect. what about the people that we never think of that need a hand in one way or another. between our sinful nature and society's postmodern consumerism we have been trained far beyond our own instincts into believing that if i get nothing out of it why bother.
Maybe Dave the thought behind this messy question is that there are so many countless areas in my life where i just plain stink. I can be everything anyone else can be, and like the peeling of an onion God peels back layer afer discusting layer and as he does that I think we come to the end of ourselves in a certain area, or with bad thinking, dysfuntional living or whatever. As these things are revealed and laid bare we can begin to come to grips with that bit of me. there are so many deaths that we need to die to follow Jesus.... does that help, it helped me to write it, because it wasn't all that clear to me either.....
just throwing honest
c2+
Craig, I just wanted to say that you did a great job in chapel today! People loved you! Everyone thought you were really funny and really good! I've never heard people say that about a chaple speaker before!
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