The End Of Me By Kyle Idleman

Scriptures: Galatians 2:20, Luke 9:23

Dear Me

Dear Me,
I’ve known you for as long as I can remember. I once heard there’s “a friend who sticks closer than a brother,” and, yes, that’s us, though I doubt it’s what the proverb was talking about. I’ve been close to a lot of people, but you and me? We have quite an attachment.

Looking back, it’s fair to say I’ve treated you pretty well. As a matter of fact, more times than I can count, I’ve put you ahead of anything and everything else. Agreed?

As we were growing up, I tried to make sure you were always at the front of the line. I saw to it that you got the biggest cookie on the plate, the best parking spot, the comfiest chair in any room we entered.

In school, I noticed the little things you liked, and I went after them. You always loved attention, so I did everything in my power to see that you got it. You still like the spotlight, so I’ve maneuvered to keep you in its glare. Now that we have the Internet, I have more tools. I post only the pictures that show you at your very best. Anybody would think you’re living the dream. Have you seen the comments people write about you? When you have struggled or had a hard time, I’ve done my best to keep that our little secret. I’ve tried to make you happy.

Sure, it was a little easier to keep you happy when you were a cute little tyke. A simple temper tantrum got the job done. Then, as we grew older, I had to be a little more discreet. You wanted to keep winning and getting your way—all the while looking humble and unassuming. That gets tricky! Not to mention tiring.

As a matter of fact, you never seem to care about dull stuff like bills and consequences and what happens tomorrow. I’ve said more than a few harsh words on your behalf to certain people, and you never warned me about the mess. You never told me I couldn’t unsay what I’ve said.

I love you, Me. But I can’t keep living for you. You always insisted that if I’d just keep you happy, then I’d be happy—as simple as that. But you know what? It’s not as simple as that. It never has been.

Me, I’ve let you be in control and sit in the driver’s seat, but it’s clear you can’t be trusted. You keep insisting you know the way we should go, but it always seems to be a dead end. I’ve looked into some other options, and I have decided to begin a journey down a different path. It’s narrow and difficult and not many choose it, but it leads to real and abundant life. However, and there is no easy way to say this, I can’t take this path if I bring you along.

So, Me, this is the end of you.

Sincerely,
Me

Scriptures: Matthew 5:1-3, Jeremiah 18:4-6

Broken to Be Whole

Sociologist Brene Brown’s TED talk on vulnerability has accumulated more than fifteen million hits. A significant factor in its popularity is the plain truth that, as much as we fight it, we long for the freedom to admit we’re broken. We don’t realize our need to do it. It’s true for every one of us, and it’s most true for those who least realize it.

Brown helps us see we’re not alone. Here’s what she says: “We are ‘those people.’ The truth is… we are the others. Most of us are one paycheck, one divorce, one drug-addicted kid, one mental health diagnosis, one serious illness, one sexual assault, one drinking binge, one night of unprotected sex, or one affair away from being “those people”—the ones we don’t trust, the ones we pity, the ones we don’t let our children play with, the ones bad things happen to, the ones we don’t want living next door.”

There are too many voices telling us to keep up appearances, because if we don’t, our life will fall apart.

There are too many voices telling us to entertain ourselves, and if we don’t think the bad thoughts, the bad stuff will somehow trickle away.

That’s why the people of our times have become masters of illusion, experts at covering pain, abusers of medication, slaves of financial debt, followers of fads, and partakers of loneliness. Because we won’t realize that the only solution for being broken is… brokenness.

The good news is that God makes the broken whole. He takes the overlooked, the undervalued, the left out, the written off, the damaged and destroyed, and then he does what only he can do.

God loves to make the broken beautiful.

Jeremiah 18:4-6 is such a beautiful image of God sitting at the wheel, looking down at the flawed piece of pottery, and refusing to toss it. The potter made another jar “as seemed best to him.” All the same clay and the same cracks, but all made new. There is no junk heap. The art is in endless possibilities of one piece of clay.

My prayer is, “God, take my broken pieces and remold them into what seems best to you.”

Scriptures: Matthew 5:4, Psalms 32:1-5

Mourn to Be Happy

They say life is but a dream, but if so, there are too many abrupt wake-ups in it. I bet you’ve had more than a few. I mean those times when life was on cruise control, but then something happened and you were suddenly in for a rough ride. The end of me often comes when my dreams come to an end.

It works like this. In surprising ways, suffering makes room in our spirit for us to know and experience the blessing of God’s peace and presence. Without suffering, we simply can’t know his comfort. In mourning, we experience the blessing of God’s presence.

Eugene Peterson’s The Message paraphrases Matthew 5:4 this way: “You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.”

At the end of yourself you have an opportunity to experience the presence of God in a way you never have before. Maybe you’ve embraced some wonderful things and lost them. But there’s no embrace like the divine one.

Often, people pray for change on the outside, when God cares more about change on the inside. People pray for their desires and realize more and more that God answered in terms of their needs.

There is also the mourning that is our response to the sin in ourselves and in our world. The first kind of mourning is inspired by devastation from without. This one springs from devastation from within—the sinfulness that wreaks havoc on us, on those we love, and on the world around us. Throughout Scripture there’s a connection between mourning over sin—of every kind—and receiving God’s blessing. Israel often mourned together as a nation and received God’s blessing as a nation.

So, let’s be clear. You will fall into sin. Everyone does. And you’ll still be slow to face your mourning. Everyone is. Just understand that in your hesitancy to mourn your sin, you’re also delaying the blessing of God. There is no way to get to that blessing without the mourning that precedes it.

What if you faced the sin in your life this very day with a period of genuine mourning? What if you spent some time meditating, praying, and grieving over the sin in the world around you?

Before you think about all that, think about this: It’s going to change you. It’s going to transform your outlook on yourself and your world in a dramatic way. In essence, you’re electing to see things from Christ’s perspective, from the inside out, and you can’t do that without becoming a little more like Christ.

It’s a far cry from the “have a nice day” faith we tend to preach. I realize that. It’s not too perky or peppy, but it happens to be aligned with truth, and it happens to be the one path to the deepest, fullest joy that God offers. You’ll walk through the valley of the shadow, but I promise you this: you’ll never walk alone.

Scriptures: Matthew 5:5, Luke 18:9-14, James 4:6

Humbled to Be Exalted

There are things you learn in the work of ministry. One is that people come to church looking for solutions. They’re caught up in their problems, and they wonder if there could be a supernatural answer. Debt, addiction, a failing marriage—whatever it is, sooner or later they ask for action steps. Bullet points, in careful order, for resolving the problem. “What can I do?” We always assume the answer is in the word “do.”

And while sometimes we have some dos that need to get done, the truth is there’s no substitute for humbling ourselves. At this point someone says, “Sure, I get it. Be more humble. But there’s got to be something I can, you know, do. Other than be more humble.”

It’s so much easier to do than to be. To do is to take some action. To be requires real transformation.

You want to know what to do? Fine, we can do it that way.
-Stand at a distance.
-Beat your chest.
-Pray this: “God, have mercy on me.”
-Mean it.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that last one is the key. It happens when you humble yourself.

Are you interested in some don’ts?
-Don’t make your case.
-Don’t pull out your resume.
-Don’t ask for blessings by comparing yourself to others.
-Don’t tell God all the reasons you deserve to be blessed.
-Don’t congratulate God for having you as a child.
-Don’t thank God for all the hard work you’ve put in.

There is no substitute for humbling yourself before God. The humble heart pleases God. The humble cry invites him to demonstrate his power.

Being humbled is something we think of as a passive activity—that is, somebody or something humbles us. We are humbled by unemployment, by a failed relationship, by a dream shattered. But Jesus speaks of a humbling that is active—we are the humblers. This is not something we wait for to occur naturally. “Humble yourself.” It doesn’t sound right, does it? Almost a little masochistic. We’re used to being advised to assert ourselves, not to humble ourselves.

This is the masterwork of humility—what Christ did. He made himself nothing. He humbled himself. This was someone who was in very nature—in very essence—God but who didn’t cling to that status but rather made himself nothing.

How do we humble ourselves? Here are some ways that help me get to the end of me:
-To humble myself, I voluntarily confess sin.
-To humble myself, I give sacrificially and anonymously.
-To humble myself, I treat others better than myself.
-To humble myself, I ask for help.

Scriptures: Matthew 5:8, Matthew 6:1, Matthew 6:5-6, Matthew 23:5

Authentic to Be Accepted

We as humans struggle with authenticity because we fear rejection. We want the world to see us at our very best because then people are more likely to accept and possibly even admire us.

Maybe we don’t need to try so hard or hide any of our blemishes. Maybe people will like us just the way we are. It’s even possible they’ll be more drawn to us if they know some of our failings and struggles. They could say, “I’m like that too. I have the same issues. I’m glad to know there are two of us.”

But there’s a risk we won’t take. Fear is the enemy of transparency. We don’t like our flaws, and we don’t expect anybody else to. So we work hard at putting up the most impressive front we can.

“Pure in Heart”… That’s something to think about, isn’t it? It means you’re living the blessed life when you stop worrying about the signs and the extravagant advertising and all the effort expended in trying to convince people you’re something different than you are. When the inside and outside match up, you’re pure in heart and you’re where he wants you to be.

Getting to the end of me means I’m not so worried about performing for others anymore. Getting to the end of me means I’m no longer interested in faking it, because I understand that God is looking for the real me.

When we bow to give thanks in a restaurant, how unmixed and sincere are our hearts? Are we thinking entirely about God and his provision of the meal, or is some part of us thinking about how we appear to others?

When we raise our hand to volunteer for a project at church, how much of the heart is allocated to pleasing God, and how much is concerned with who is watching and how impressed they may be?

Do we wonder who’s watching as the offering plate goes by?

When we stand to pray publicly, are the words geared to God’s ear or to those listening?

Coming to the end of me means I am through with seeking the applause or attention of man and the emptiness it produces. Instead, I seek only to please God—I receive my reward from him instead of from people. When we close the public theater, drop the curtains, shut off the lights, and play to an audience of one, not caring about the reviews of the critics or anyone else, that’s when we come to the end of ourselves and experience God’s blessing.

Scriptures: Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 11:6, John 1:16

Disqualified to Be Chosen

Remember the story of Paul on the road to Damascus? God takes Saul and reinvents him as the leader of the Christian movement, the first evangelist outside the Jewish faith, and the first great theologian of Christianity.

If anyone was disqualified for leadership, shouldn’t it have been a man who murdered believers and organized search-and-destroy missions against the church?

It’s not that Jesus needed Paul. The movement was already winning converts and producing leaders. With a twist like this one, God was up to something. We have to conclude he was sending a message.

What was that message all about—and what does it mean for you and me?

It means we don’t have a disqualification against us. How sad if some of us think God looks at us and sees an overdue expiration date.

Don’t you think Peter must have felt that way? Here’s a guy Jesus personally chose and spent a lot of time with. It had to mean something when Jesus called him the Rock—what guy wouldn’t like being given that name?

But after he did exactly what Jesus told him he would do, denying him at the moment of crisis, Peter retreated to his old life and figured he was off the list. Jesus had made it a point to tell him he’d fail. Why would he do that? Peter probably thought Jesus was saying, “You’re not going to make it after all. Watch how you screw up in a few hours.”

Peter went fishing, the only other life he knew. That’s it for me. My time came, and I struck out.

Out there on the boat that early morning, he reflected on the shipwreck of all his dreams. Jesus had qualified him, and that was a miracle. He had disqualified himself, and that was a tragedy.

Then he looked up to see a figure on the shore. Against all odds, it was Jesus, waving at him, telling him there was still work to do, and what was he doing out on that boat?

I still choose you.

What’s the past burden you’re still carrying? Adultery? Go talk to David the king. Lying? Deception? Abraham and Isaac knew a little about that. A sordid past? God chose Rahab, a prostitute. Anger and temper issues? James and John fit into God’s plan anyhow. How about a string of bad relationship choices? The woman at the well knew what that was like, and God sent Jesus with a message just for her.

Maybe today it’s your turn. Jesus has a message for you. It has nothing to do with your qualifications. It has to do with coming to the end of yourself, because that’s when God can use you in the very best way. By his grace, and by nothing you can offer, he chooses you.

Scriptures: 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, 1 Corinthians 1:27

Weak to Be Strong

In Corrie ten Boom’s book Tramp for the Lord, she told of a woman she met in Russia during the Cold War when Christians were being persecuted.

The old woman, Corrie wrote, was reclining on a sofa. Multiple sclerosis had done quite a job on this woman. Her body was twisted in every direction, and she depended on pillows to prop her up. She had no mobility, so her husband’s time was consumed by her care. The index finger of her right hand was all she could control. Nothing else.

But oh, what she got from that finger. It moved across a typewriter keyboard all day and late into the night, tapping out words and sentences and paragraphs as she translated the Bible and other Christian books into her Russian language.

Her husband watched and noticed that it often took the wrinkled old finger quite a long time to hit a key—but on it moved, letter by letter, through books of the Bible.

And then Corrie ten Boom came for a visit. She looked at the twisted, skeletal frame on the sofa, and compassion overcame her. She prayed, “Oh, Lord, why don’t you heal this poor woman?”

The husband saw how deeply moved the visitor was, and he said, “God has a purpose in her sickness. Every other Christian in the city is watched closely by the secret police. But because she has been so sick for so long, no one ever looks in on her. They leave us alone, and she is the only person who can translate, undetected by the police.”

It’s inaccurate to say that God worked despite her weakness. The truth is that he was glorified through her weakness in a powerful way. You’d feel sorry for that woman, just as I would. But the very thing we’d wish and pray away, the very thing apparently destroying her life, the prickly thorn causing so much pain was a holy place that allowed a very weak woman to become a pillar of strength in God’s kingdom.