Then Jesus went to work on his disciples. “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for?
Like the seeds on a dandelion stem we are but skeleton remains of what we were before Jesus began to heal us. We are but a ghost of the image of what once was our self. As we begin to seek God for answers on how to be healed and become whole it’s like we just keep blowing on those seeds and soon they disappear into the wind until all that is left is a stem. This is where the dying process should begin but we as self-help gurus, want to start right at the beginning and kill the life out of our weeds. For you see a dandelion is a weed to a beautiful, well kept lawn and the first thing we do is get our the spray and begin to annihilate life before it can begin. But to God there is beauty to be beheld in the dandelion.
We as humans do the same thing to ourselves sometimes when we come to know Jesus. All of a sudden there is an awareness of the sins which have surrounded us. We start a no smoking program. We join the nearest AA to control our drinking issues. We do our best to stop swearing. We stop gossiping about others. We try to be nice to all people. We try to fix all the wrong relationships in our lives all at once. We begin to forgive our mothers, sisters, fathers, brothers, aunts, uncles, teachers and the multitude of people who have hurt us since birth. What do we forget in this process? Our very own selves. We tend to misunderstand that all of the sin natures we have will begin to dissipate as we allow God to heal our wounded hearts.
We get so caught up in getting our lives in order and in line with God and trying to live right that we completely forget that we need to heal. We need to forgive ourselves. We need to right the relationship with ourselves. Some of you are scratching your heads right now because this seems so backwards. Some of you are saying that it could never happen because you have done so many wrong things. Others of you are saying, what does loving myself got to do with anything?
Loving yourself is the center of who you are. God created you to have an intimate relationship with and if you are not in tune with who you are because you don’t even want to approach you because of all the unlove, then how will you ever have a right relationship with God? If we are always running away from our own issues, how are we ever going to be healed? I think that we are so busy trying to figure out life that we forget it’s all up to God. We were created by Love itself.
We need to come to this realization that God does all the healing and fixing of us. We just need to surrender our will to His plan. We need to be obedient to that still small voice. We have to begin to believe all of the promises God has for us in the Bible. We need to come to the full understanding that God loves us and will never leave our side. Healing is a process. Somethings can be healed instantly while other issues in our lives just take time. We live in a society of instant mashed potatoes and I think we expect that if we just had water, butter and some heat to a heap of flakes our lives will be all back together in a matter of minutes.
Stop running. Just stand still. Rest. Relax. Hear God say. “I love you” ” I miss you” “Come spend some quiet time with me” He is waiting for you to just give up. To finally be able to say to Him, “Here I am Lord, fix me, I am broken and unable to put me back together.”
