What to believe...

As we go off for vacation, we go knowing that God has now given you a definite direction in which to lead me, at least one small step...He gave you a dream of the place before you saw it, and so when the seeing became real, it made your heart race. (You'd think we'd be getting used to this divine leading by now...grin.)

Yet it is a strange thing. We truly go in faith, believing but not seeing how God plans to use this step to prepare me for His larger work that will lie beyond it. That is the message you got. Some switch will be tripped that does not seem to affect us, but somehow affects things outside ourselves. That is the message I got. So we go, in clouds and trepidation.

Here is my devotional today. It seems to be a salve to the parts that feel disturbed by all this mystery.

The scripture text examined is Matthew 16:24, "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself."

"Individuality separates and isolates." I realize that I still suffer such individuality. There are places I am isolated in this way, standing on a foundation of remembered pain and fear, and these are like pockets of puss.

"The shell of individuality is God's created natural covering for the protection of the personal life, but individuality must go in order that the personal life may come out and be brought into fellowship with God." For now, I'm spiritually functional, with these pools of death well-contained, but still the threat remains that their infection would spread if they are not lanced and cleansed. What would happen if one day my full-body/spirit system were stressed? I can see this potential threat.

You think I see you coming at me with a scalpel to do this job, and you think that I may be so afraid of this loss of self-protection, that my heart won't take the strain, and I'll die on the table. Then you wonder if, while you are standing there with the knife still in your hand, you'll be tempted to turn it on yourself. We both have gone through a natural and appropriate 'count the cost' reaction to this divine leading.

But because it is divine leading, it must be by faith alone that I believe I will make it through the cutting away of this feeble foundation of remembered pain and fear when you take it from me. I've seen you lop off such parts in your life. I've seen you walk in that kind of courage. But you haven't seen me drop my individuality--have it cut through--this close to the bone. When I first encountered the idea, it came with the temptation of a possible touirniquet alone serving the need. "God wouldn't do this to me," I cried to you. But He knows better than I that staunching the blood loss I see wouldn't be enough. Death would still spread. Amputation is indeed the prescribed treatment. Before I accepted this fact, you had to suffer and stand by me through my lack of belief. I hate that I did this to you.

So He will amputate something, but He will replace the loss with something better. And I will do more than survive. This much, I've come far enough to believe. Now, we must believe that I have the courage to see this all through to the end, or God wouldn't be leading us toward it. In this way, I am your Isaac. I understand that God is leading you along a path for our good...and not just ours. I trust His plans are for our good and not for harm.

"Individuality counterfeits personality as lust counterfeits love." I understand and have experienced the benefits of turning away from lust to embrace love, so I am able to see the analogy and believe for the goodness of this other turning; even though such a turning, before it is made, always makes the thing abandoned, even a bad thing, proclaim and lament its own death. It is almost finished making noises.

"The characteristics of individuality are independence and self assertiveness. It is the continual assertion of individuality that hinders our spiritual life more than anything else." Soon our spiritual eyes will be able to see what is behind and what is ahead, a thing we can not see for now. What will we see when this last hindrance falls away? In this I find my joy and my anticipation.

"If you say--'I cannot believe,' it is because individuality is in the road; individuality never can believe. Personality cannot help believing." Yes, a last hindrance in the road; but more than that. It is also a testing of the limits of our self-focus; a reckoning of evidence in favor of our motive as being one of self-denial.

"Watch yourself when the Spirit of God is at work. He pushes you to the margins of your individuality, and you have either to say--'I shan't,' or to surrender, to break the husk of individuality and let the personal life emerge. The Holy Spirit narrows it down every time to one thing. The thing in you that will not be reconciled to your brother is your individuality. God wants to bring you into union with Himself, but unless you are willing to give up your right to yourself He cannot. 'Let him deny himself'--deny his independent right to himself, then the real life has a chance to grow." May it be unto us according to His amazing purposes.