Humility? (And, Happy Birthday to my brother Andy!)

You can't get closer to God if you are always trying to figure out who it is that you yourself are supposed to be -- at least in any conventional sense -- if it means 'what must I do differently?,' or 'how should I speak?' or anything half-hearted and ultimately self-effacing in the insincere false humility that plagues us all. Or at least it plagues me...

Must I fix my mind on high and lofty theological things so that I can grasp one tiny grain of sand? When I do this, I begin to engage with others as if I've got something figured out.

Must I be kind and gentle? When I do this, soon enough I become a contrived version of my "self," a Mr. Rogers wanna-be. (Never thought that would go in style...)

Must I be firm and solid in my convictions? Alas, I lack the backbone of ultimate certainty, and even someone as secretly proud as me cannot stomach the self-righteousness in boasting outside of Christ. Still, Christian men are to have fortitude, says John MacArthur...

Must I add all things in order that my integrity be unsurpassed? Ridiculous! Heresy!

I must dive into the endless spiral of true self-denial, that is, I must fall in love with God. In this deep and penetrating relationship there can be no written end (except in the Mind of God) but in losing ourselves we can indeed find who we really are in Christ. I long for this.

Perhaps the secret has something to do with a paradoxical integrity. When we have stripped away every impostor, Christ adds all things to us in our recognition of our own poverty. When we have no ultimate reliance on our own faculties, but a supreme confidence in Him to use them, then we can at last be free.

The major hindrance is figuring out that balance. It is my inclination to surgically remove my ego. The dilemma is that the only tool I have in operating is my ego -- and the "doctor" here is paying lip-service to the "treatment" he is offering himself, the "patient." This is what it seems Merton says in another incisive observation:

"False humility and the illusory ideal of self-annihilation. I distinguish this quite clearly from the real annihilation of the mystics, which is another matter. But a contrived "annihilation" simply sets up one figment against another and has them cancel each other out. The "self" sits by, smugly watching the operation and indeed directing it, and is not annihilated at all. On the contrary, this is a sure way of avoiding annihilation. Such "humility" becomes a last refuge in which the self remains impregnable."
--Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, p.281 (The Madman Runs to the East)

Some people seem to be less obsessed with themselves than others, and unfortunately I feel as though I may be on the of the most self-obsessed people out there. Still, it is ours to let God conquer the false self within, the vomit out the demon in the desert, to become humble servants to the Lord.

I pray that you and I can lay our hearts down as a sacrifice to the God of love, that He might give us new hearts and minds, souls bursting at the opportunity to serve and adore, to worship, and to give wholly of themselves.

"Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body?
(St. Paul to the Romans, Ch.7 v.24)