Then Jesus told his disciples, ” If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. for whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

Matthew 16:24-25

Losing to Find

There is a saying that states, for every change there is a loss and every loss requires grief. If so how do you deny yourself as the verse above says without some level of grief? For me, I have grieved times when I felt I had to say no to me. Or at least the me God is telling me to deny. I know for a lot of people this verse is problematic. Denying yourself is not good right? But we have to deny ourselves daily in pursuit of the life we want all the time. To be consistent in the gym, you have to deny the part of you that resists change. You must be disciplined in that goal. It seems to be a life principle. Many times, to become who we really want to be, a part of us must lose. And I don’t like the losing.

Being a Christian, has challenged me in ways I have often not felt comfortable with. It has asked me to be bold where I would rather hide. To speak, when I’d rather be silent and to tell the truth, When I would rather lie. The hardest part of my journey with God has been this letting go of me. The me, that I feel so comfortable with but simultaneously keeps me living small. I wrestle with God because it scares me. I feel undone at times when out of my comfort zone. I feel raw, and vulnerable and often unsafe in the things that God calls me to be. So over the years, I have wrestled. I have found that this divine wrestle, is something that I can’t run from. I have tried a million times, but when you have fought with God, you are never left the same. After wrestling with God Jacob left as Israel, and from that day forward walked with a limp. I feel that. Like despite my attempts to run away, God will have his way. But I love him, and so I find myself wanting to follow Him even when I struggle. Is this love enough? Is his love enough? He said if anyone follow me, this would be the cost, the loss of me. So is God worth it?

A poem I wrote describes my wrestle best:

Solace

I have longed for solace like wind blowing up a windowpane

Like waves crashing until the sand rolls back

Like plants panting for the carbon monoxide to build its own breath

My souls’ been panting for this breath

My Spirit beckons me to depth

Causes chills to revert across my body

Where Spiritual and physical link up like friends

Something inside calls to me

Stops me in my tracks

Its presence so present

I feel it

Intimately knowing my life Is not meant to be so focused on the material things’

On the societal goals that have oh so often defined the success of me

No, God beckons me to see success as living in this mystery

Finding comfort in the unknown paths of victory His will

Like constant no’s leading to the biggest yes and no body knowing it except HE

Feeling other worldly stuck between two paradigms of life pulling at the seams

These new wine skins are far superior to the previous ones

But still uncomfortable as only growth can be

I see me but I also see them living, laughing, enjoying

And I know while at times I long to be without restraint,

I long for God’s domain

Where kingdom rules and democracy crashes

I am so sick of being passive

It’s tragic that to see self and instantly regret its path

it challenges me

reminds me I am not from here that

I’m Alien & foreign

These tears roll down my face

the water releasing its the weight

I am different and I have fought not to be

Assimilation a dream I cannot realize

If I desire to be me (free)

I write these lines but

Will anyone understand it?

These musing that bubble up like water flowing from my soul

Like truths that must be told

I write and know they must be known

So, I cannot be the only soul

For whom do I write these diatribes that hide inside me waiting to let go So that the freedom inside its truth is known

I see how intentionally he is leading me

And yet, I don’t want to be free

I want to crawl back inside and act as if life is lived inside the cave in me

But once you’ve seen the light you cannot deny its sight

And everything that it isn’t 

It frightens me, how being me seems to be unraveling

How accepting who I am releases everything I thought I was

To accept the me I never knew I was or could be

To live in this tension begs the question

Who is me?

And better yet who are Thee?

That I should lose my life for the one I cannot see

To gain a life worth saving

Just so our eyes meet

What pearl of price can be worth my life?

Like Pearl of the Antilles

Can love like this reside inside me

Like ancient text written in the scriptures

No longer written on tablets of stone

But on the tablets of human hearts :

For love is as strong as death

And jealousy as fierce as the grave