Belonging

Sometimes, we lose ourselves; an act which can result in wonderful purpose and lead us to great destinations beyond ourselves. Or , it causes us and others hurt, loss and most of all a connection to our sense of a higher purpose or calling.

It's amazing that amount of books and philosophical writings that have been published regarding finding your calling, purpose, self, meaning and so forth. Practically every self-help book is about that in one way or another.

So many voices. So many opinions.

The intriguing thing is that if you look to scripture for "self-help" you'll quickly realize there's little preservation of self or even encouragement for "self" in scriptures. All through scripture there's the common thread of "die to self", "swear to your own hurt" and so forth. Scripture even commands that we esteem others better than ourselves.

Using scripture for more guidance on the subject of self preservation, look at the Hebrew boys- who walked into the fiery furnace. Daniel, thrown in a lion's den. The Exodus of the Hebrew children. Nothing was comfortable. None of the great stories of Faith have any plot line that remotely looks like self-preservation. It was all or nothing.

 Humans (for the most part) have an innate need for comfort, belonging and warm fuzzy feelings that makes us feel loved and included. There's not a lot of support for warm fuzzies through scripture examples...for instance there was the time that Jesus said "Let the dead bury the dead. "  So harsh, in light of the circumstances in the story.

It's painfully obvious that any good in ourselves is contrived, self-preserving and blatantly pious.

From an early age good, Christian children are taught that our righteousness is but as filthy rags....but to really comprehend and come to grips with the reality of that scripture applying to YOU with as much severity as it applies to the hypocritical televangelist asking for donations- well, its a sobering realization to say the least.

Coming to terms with the lack of righteousness and goodness I possess is not only sobering- its almost depressing.
The point that I've had driven into my spirit and heart recently (through prayer and reading) is that we as Christians are to hide ourselves in Him...we are to be so intertwined that we are no longer "ourself" and therefore any good that comes from us is not reflecting back on ourself but is lighting an onlooker to Christ.