Well, it’s 7:30 in the evening on Sunday, and the first day of church life at Sagebrush Highland went very well. With over 300 in attendance (200 or so in the initial service) and some full youth classrooms, the new church venue began with a good base of attendees to welcome its arrival.  The service was similar to what you would find at any of the other campuses- great music, the similar stage, and Todd’s video sermon.  The message, on the second coming of Christ, was basic but challenging.  “Christ will return- what does that mean to you today?”  Church at the Highland campus today was as it has been for me for some time at any of the other campuses- energizing.  I enjoyed serving and worshipping.

This morning I wrote a little about what I experienced after setting up for the first public service.  I wrote about being a little lost a times around people, and being perplexed by it.  Some of this lostness is due, no doubt, to my personality. Some of it is due to my comfort and confidence around people.

Tonight, reflecting on the day, I stumbled across a fresh memory from two weeks ago, and thought it was worth touching on.  The memory itself is not so pleasant.  I basically called a friend at a bad time and nevertheless pressed her to help me understand why she had been uncommunicative with me over the last few days.  She’s been a valued friend, and so it was surprising, stark, and it stung when she told me, “Well, Bruce, everything doesn’t revolve around you.” When I got off the phone with her from that call, I thought about that comment among others from her, and was hurt by it for a few days.  She called me selfish.

But after the few days, the sting wore off, and God met me at a quiet moment during the day when I thought about her words, and He said, “You know- she’s right.”

We all, by nature, are selfish.  She wasn’t telling me anything new that I didn’t know (or should not have known) about myself.  As a Christian (as we both are), her statement was right in line with basic doctrine about the natural heart of man.  Left to our own devices, every one of us has a natural propensity to live to and for ourselves. “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way… (Isaiah 53:6)” And as a Christian, it is easy to think that just because I claim Jesus is my Lord, I become selfless.  In reality, I still have this nature in me that wants what I want regardless of God’s desire for my life.  And I prove I am still hostage to my old nature because her comment upset me after she said it.

On any other day of my life, I am pretty readily aware that I have this nature in me that still strives for my promotion and my celebration.  As a single, socially awkward introvert, I am often aware that I talk too much about myself when I find an ear.  I don’t know if it is from being alone so much throughout life, or is a result of my struggles to help my innermost thoughts surface in most conversations, but I know that those who are close to me probably hear too much about me from time to time.  Me, in excess.  Maybe it’s just from being a middle child, at times wondering if I am heard much at all.

Regardless, I have no doubt that I have this selfish nature in me, and that even though God is working to sanctify my heart, it still drives me in much of my life.

I am supposed to learn a lesson here, from my friend’s words, and from my morning observations.  In cases where I am either feeling inadequate and socially awkward like this morning, or when I am indicted in my heart for the selfish drive that turns my best intentions into self-promotion or pleas for attention, all is not lost.  I just need to continue in my fight to forget myself.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me (Matthew 16:24).”

Part of the process of dying to self is not necessarily being full of contrition, practicing spiritual flagellation, and working on starving the ego. In each of those cases, when we practice those things, we inevitably remain focused on ourselves, and have not created any more space in our hearts for God to come and dwell more deeply with us and to speak to us.  We have not turned our eyes outward and seen the works of His hands, or the wisdom of His ways.  We are still beached staring at ourself.

Rather, when Jesus asks us to deny ourselves, He is asking us to forget ourselves.  He is asking us to loosen the strictures of our moralisms and the limits of our expectations and the censure of our connections.  He is asking us to put the focus of our eyes and our hearts out there, instead of on ourselves. Forget yourself for a bit.  “And when you do, you will be surprised at what you see.”

Brennan Manning calls this ability to forget a mark of the humble.

Humble men and women do not have a low opinion of themselves; they have no opinion of themselves, because they so rarely think of themselves.  The heart of humility lies in undivided attention to God, a fascination with his beauty revealed in creation, a contemplative presence  to each person who speaks to us, and a “de-selfing” of our plans, projects, ambitions, and soul. Humility is manifest in an indifference to our intellectual, emotional, and physical well-being and a carefree disregard  of the image we present.  No longer concerned with appearing to be good, we can move freely in the mystery of who we really are, aware of the sovereignty of God and of our absolute insufficiency and yet moved by a spirit of radical self-acceptance without self concern. (Ruthless Trust, pp. 120-121)

My lesson here for today is to remember that walking with Christ is often, when it comes to our selves, fighting to forget.