Death to Self

In my prayer time this morning, I was reading a commentary on Amos 9:2-4, and these two paragraphs caught my attention:

"I had repeated Jer 29:11 for thirty-five years and had preached on it often, but I heard it sound in my soul with greater power one day when I was alone, flat on my back and helpless after a hiking accident on the northwest coast of Scotland. My leg was badly crushed, and my cries for human help had gone unheeded as I dragged myself for nearly three hours. When I gave up and accepted that I might not be rescued, my pleas for the Lord's help were answered when, with the ears of my heart, I heard this verse as if for the first time. Prior to hearing the Lord's word, I had surrendered my plans and dreams for my life, confessed my failures, and praised the Lord for all He had done. Whether I made it or not, I knew I was the Lord's forever. "I have plans for you … a future … a hope!" I heard as I drifted into the blur of excruciating pain and then unconsciousness. Sometime after, I was found by a doctor who "happened" to be out walking with his son and daughter. I had experienced authentic hope when I was helpless.

The long months in bed convalescing and then the tedious process of learning to walk again were both used by the Lord to help me continue the deepening process that had begun in my fresh encounter with Him after the accident. My own plans for my work for Him had to be surrendered so I could hear His plans. False gods of professional pride, success, and control had to be faced and removed from subtle syncretism with the Lord. We all get sucked into the seduction of the secondary, all the good things we do for the Lord that eventually compete with Him for first place in our lives. Busyness for the Lord is a beguiling false god if it keeps us from daily, hourly, communion with Him and moment-by-moment guidance in His plans for us. Sometimes He uses our problems and difficulties to get our attention. We get the most out of suffering when it brings us to deeper trust and a new commitment to Him as our only hope. For that we need a fresh vision of the majesty and might of the Lord."

(From the Preacher's Commentary, Ed. By Charles Kip Jordan; "Commentary on Amos" by Lloyd Ogilvie) (emphasis mine)

Death to self, and life in, from, and even to Christ.


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