to know myself.

"The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become - because He made us. He invented us. He invented all the different people that you and I were intended to be. . .It is when I turn to Christ, when I give up myself to His personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own." 

                                                                                                           - C.S. Lewis

I read this tonight and it was as if a light went on for the first time. Obviously, I knew this to be true before tonight, but reading the words, seeing them burning before my eyes, they were like a living thing and they have firmly rooted themselves in my heart. To know myself does not mean "looking inside and finding who I really am" it doesn't mean "accepting and loving who I am" because, who I am is not someone I can love or accept. Who I am is steeped in sin and ruled by my flesh. It means looking at Christ and Christ alone, looking deep inside His heart, accepting and loving who He is and what He did for me, and falling ever more in love with Him. When I desire to know who He is, that is when I truly begin to see who I can be with my life exchanged for His. It's amazing to me that the closer I get to Him, the more time I spend with Him, the more creative and inspired I become! This is a beautiful example that the statement above is true. Yet, I have changed. By seeking His will, diving into His word, catching a glimpse of His beautiful face, my desires have changed completely. No longer do I desire the job that allows me to have "the" car and house with a white picket fence. No! Give me huts in Africa, shanties in Haiti, prisons in China, give me any place where I can be used to bring glory to His name! Put me anywhere that draws me closer to Him, where my life may be spent and used. Let me desire to "give what I cannot keep, to gain what I cannot loose."

Yes, my desires have changed, who I thought I was has changed, praise God! I am finally learning that who I am is totally and irrevocably lost in all that He is and what a beautiful place it is. Never again do I want the "old man" back, but may I forever be made new in Him. So, let me give up all that I am, let me always turn to Him and Him alone, and only then may I discover a "personality of my own."