To Know Only You

I’m reading right now Be Still my Soul: Embracing God’s Purpose and Provision in Suffering. It is a compilation of essays, edited by Nancy Guthrie, which delve into the deep mystery and paradoxes of God’s truth regarding pain. The book has been intensely thought-provoking and challenging, as it has exposed my heart’s selfishness as well as my tendency to be earthly-minded and short sighted.

Yesterday’s reading was by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor who lived 1906 to 1945 and was a participant in the German resistance movement against Naziism. He was eventually arrested, imprisoned and executed by hanging shortly before WWII’s end.

“Calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Mark 8:34

Bonhoeffer writes,
        “In denying Christ, Peter said, ‘I do not know the man’. Those who follow Christ must say that to themselves. Self denial means knowing only Christ, no longer knowing oneself. It means no longer seeing oneself, only Him who is going ahead, no longer seeing the way which is too difficult for us.”
        “Self denial says only: he is going ahead; hold fast to Him. Only when we have really forgotten ourselves completely, when we really no longer know ourselves, only then are we ready to take up the cross for his sake. When we know only Him, then we also no longer know the pain of our own cross. Then we see only Him.”

This is my prayer,

 here in my 21st century ease and prosperity.

 Yet my heart reality is entrenched self preoccupation.

 Perhaps not with material gain, not pleasure or amusement, not even primarily with success and well-being of family (and so I can deceivingly settle into covert self-congratulation at my spiritual maturity). But still I rise each day with instant self focus. I contextualize my existence around my feelings, my satisfaction, my judgements, my version of kingdom ministry, my perspectives even of God’s truth. I can even choose self denial around my areas of preference (thus, fulfilling the above quoted verse).

At a heart level, though, I recognize in the stillness of full disclosure and transparent honesty that I have far to go to ‘no longer see myself, to know only Him’.

And so I plead to my Father to make it so.
Continue to work in my heart so I might love you supremely, recognizing your superior worth and goodness.
Make me small in my own heart and mind.
Help me, as Dietrich Bonhoffer stated, to ‘know only You' even as I must continue to live in this human body (which requires some self-awareness) in this earthly realm (which demands some responsible attention!).
This transformation will never come apart from your provision of grace, I know, as my efforts can never make it so.

And so, Dear Father, I rest in (even as I run hard after) You.