Have you ever been so wrong about something that it hurts? The point where you just close your eyes and sigh because you realize that in your own power you have been reduced to nothing. On the contrary, have you ever been so loved that you are overwhelmed? Loved to the point that you just cannot comprehend what is happening. You are void of all words and sound…
If you have ever been in both of these places at the same time, you have probably had a deep encounter with God that words just cannot quite express. It is a moment where your heart hurts so greatly by realizing something that God has been patiently waiting years for you to see. All of this time you have been walking along as if everything was okay. Not that you were hiding anything. You simply did not see it. This is the story of the condition of my heart over the last day and how it left me in such shock that I could not express what was happening until now, sitting down and intensely focusing on just how to express myself.
Allow me, if you will, to walk you through what has happened over the past year that brings me to this point (in summary of course.) I am the type of person that loves to have the answers to everything. I love to encourage people, I love to teach people, I love to give advice and guide people. This kind of mind set makes me crave one thing very much. Wisdom. It gives you that edge above everyone else and allows you to have the answer that others might not have. It also means that you have probably done a lot of things that the average Joe has not done. I love to gain wisdom through experience because then you not only have the spoken word of guidance to someone, you also have the life story to back up what you are saying.
All of this to say, I was greatly attracted to a program call LXP (The Leadership Experience) in South Africa because of the amount of wisdom I would be able to gain while spending 8 months there. I was able to sit under amazing and Godly teachers that lead by example. I had much knowledge poured into me and then I was able to go out into other parts of the continent and put this knowledge into practice. I was able to experience. I was able to taste the Lord’s goodness and feel His Love deeper than ever before. I was broken down into a pile of rubble, then reshaped and rebuilt. I was given much wisdom. Wisdom that I was able to bring back home with me to share.
I thought that because of the wisdom I had gained, I now held a mindset that no one else held. I had the answers to life’s questions. I thought that now I had so much more to offer than other people. I could not even bring myself to finish a book because in the back of my mind I felt that I knew things just as well as the author does, or that I could figure it out myself. The real problem was… I did not know the condition of my heart. Pride was a mindset that slowly crept in until it had taken such a great hold of me.
I grew up always looking at the people on the pedestals around the world. The people that everyone looked up to. The people that I looked up to. I always wanted that kind of recognition. For someone to say, “Hey look at how great this thing is that Cameron did.” I craved attention. I also craved a spotless face. I wanted to be in the “humble” spotlight. The one where you personally get all the recognition but still say, “Oh, don’t thank me. It was all God.” I believe the common term used is ‘False Humility.’
Now, add all of this together. You have a humble servant of the Lord walking around, full of wisdom, ready to teach and change the world. Sounds good right? Let me describe what is happening on the inside, underneath the appearance. Looks are cheap, the heart is where the real money is. The dominating thought in my mind is living for Christ…but subtly underneath it all there is the constant waiting. Waiting for someone to mention my name, waiting for someone to speak highly of me, waiting for the “humble” spotlight. Even as I write this I am fighting off the thought of how great I will look for writing such things.
What is the common theme of everything I have written so far? me. Me. SELFISH ME. This is the point in this writing that I stop talking about me. I am tired of me. Me likes to take the spotlight and completely forget about who actually did all the work. Me likes to live on his own strength when he knows good and well that we can do nothing of true worth in OUR OWN STRENGTH.
Me is just a lonely, prideful, selfish body that struggles with the same things everyone else does. I…am just a lonely, prideful, selfish person…that struggles with the same things everyone else does.
Jesus is where my true identity is. If there is any good thing, any perfect thing that has come from my life…it is Jesus.
“Lord, make me to know mine end,
And the measure of my days, what it is;
That I may know how frail I am.
Behold, thou hast made my days a handbreadth;
And mine age is as nothing before thee:
Verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity.”
Psalm 39:4-5 (KJV)
This is where my heart begins to ache in my chest. The realization of just how selfish you really are is painful. This is also where that strange and delicate combination of brokenness and Love come into play. Do you realize how much you are loved? God, ever so gently, showed me how truly self-centered I am. It was as if He softly brushed His hand across my face. I melted, with a facial expression consistent with sheer awe. He loved me so much that He would take actions considered repulsive to the world and show how I am living in them, all so He can turn around and walk more closely with me.
Imagine that for a moment.
God, creator of the universe and everything in it, sent His Son to die for us and set us free from sin. Jesus died for us! DIED. He sees how terrible and wicked we can be, even as His children, and in return He gently shows us our faults and failures with the intentions of having a closer relationship with us. Romans 5:8 and Mark 2:17 have never seemed more real to me.
“But God proves His own love for us in that
while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!”
Romans 5:8 (HCSB)
“When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people
don’t need a doctor–sick people do.
I have come to call not those who think they are righteous,
but those who know they are sinners.””
Mark 2:17 (NLT)
God help us to have that truly unconditional love that you have for us.