"Denying" myself

Then he said to them all:  "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me..."--Luke 9:23-27

Okay, so today I will be writing about myself.  I know, the verse above says the opposite of that...denying oneself right?  Exactly, I am going to tell you how God has been teaching me to deny myself.  I will warn you this will get a little personal and honest, but it's all part of the process of me denying me and following Christ.  I will also give you a heads up that before you read this, that this is my journey with God and what this scripture says to me, and it could be totally different for someone else, but I trust in what God is helping me learn through it, so I pray it comes out the way he wants it to.

So, I struggle a lot with insecurities and fears about myself.  I worry I have nothing to offer others, I struggle with having no real talents, and I am always concerned with how I look.  I have always loved make-up, hair products, and clothes.  I have found that my love language is primarily words of affirmation, which is kind of crazy because I am very uncomfortable with compliments and people saying nice things about me!  Also, what is crazy is that I am a tom boy at heart.  I have always loved sports and anything athletic, and I never minded getting dirty or sweaty.  I would come to my basketball games, softball games, and track meets with hair fixed and make-up on, and then I would compete with the best of them.  I would slide and scar up my knees, skid across the basketball court on my bottom, and dive for a serve in volleyball with no reservations of how I looked.  

God has been teaching me through circumstances and his word that dwelling on my fears and shortcomings are prideful and selfish.  I have literally been paralyzed with self-doubt and fear before.  So much so that it kept my focus off of God and onto myself and the doubts and fears.  To me, to deny myself means I don't give into those thoughts of not having anything to offer or that I'm not good enough.  That is like saying hmmm God doesn't know what he is doing or he didn't know what he was doing when long ago he made me and formed me to be this person I am.  It sounds ridiculous when I put it that way, but as we all know if we are honest with ourselves that when those thoughts come into our minds they are very real!  I have learned that I have to give them to God immediately.  I pray Proverbs 4:23 "Above all else guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life."  I add in to that prayer my heart and mind.  I also pray in those times 2 Corinthians 12:9  But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."  In that story Paul is struggling with the thorn in his flesh.  We all struggle with very real and different things.  But, he still says to deny ourselves and take up our cross daily.

In Belize, I was reminded in a very real way how all of this fits into my life.  I sweated from the time I got out of bed in the morning until the time I went to sleep, and even while I was asleep.  My clothes were literally soaked in sweat as we did VBS inside that sweet little church in San Lazaro.  The day we made salvation bracelets I was on a hot tile floor with a group of 5 or 6 little boys sliding around in my own sweat (Yes, gross I know), but guess what??  It didn't even matter that I was sweaty, that most of my make-up was gone, or that my hair was pulled back out of my face in a very unflattering way, God worked and used me, and a little boy who was focused so intently on the message of Christ not how I looked, accepted Jesus into his heart that day!  It makes me cry even now as I write this.  

You may be thinking, wow didn't you already know all of this stuff?  Don't you know God can use anyone under any circumstances?  Yes, I did know that, but God knew I needed to experience it to really see it in my life.  I guess I am a very slow learner.  I am a very visual, hands-on learner, and I don't get a lot of things until I actually experience them.  Like taking a shower in the dark that has a tarp stapled to the side of a building as my only privacy.  Yes, another humbling, self denying experience! 

As for me, I have to deny myself and take up my cross daily by not letting those thoughts of doubt, fear, unworthiness, or vanity control me.  I have to deny those selfish thoughts for Christ to be able to work in me.  It's so tough sometimes to do that, but through Christ and only through Christ can I do it.  When Jesus was telling the disciples to go and make disciples of all nations, he ended with this, "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."  I claim that verse for myself too, that he is always going to be with me as I continue to struggle to deny myself and learn how to follow him!  That's a wonderful assurance!!