The Peril of "My"

Our lives have been disrupted lately. And when I say “our”, I mean not just Chelsey and I, but the human race collectively. It almost feels like overnight, we’ve all had to adapt our lifestyles because of this virus sweeping across the world. For some, the implications of the “social distancing” order may be the hardest part of all this, especially for those who are extroverted (like me) or huggers (like Chelsey). But if you asked us what the worst part of all this is, we’d tell you it’s how it’s altered our plans. I’d be willing to bet this whole ordeal has changed some, if not all, of your upcoming plans as well. 

We were supposed to be home right now, on a short trip home to Connecticut for a baby shower for our little man on the way. This is/was very important to us because up until this point, Chelsey and I haven’t been able to share our pregnancy with our family much because of the distance between us. In the last month or so, Chelsey has “popped”, and we’ve been able to feel our baby kick and dance daily. We long to let our family and friends back home feel him move. Who knows, we still may get the opportunity if things clear up in time. But at the end of the day, we have little to no control over the trajectory of this pandemic. 

To me, it’s been incredible to see how the virus has pulled the rug right out from underneath us. I saw a post that explains what I mean, (shoutout to Lecrae, who tweeted this) 

“We haven’t lost control of our lives, we’ve lost the illusion we were ever in control.” 

The desire to have control over our lives is something I’ve used some of my new free time thinking and praying about. Right now, it’d be hard for any of us to argue we have much control over our future plans. I think God has clearly made it a point that we don’t. I’ve been surprised at how frustrated I’ve been about all this. I really wanted to go home. I’m even tempted to say that Chelsey and I have been robbed of the chance to share our pregnancy with loved ones at home. But there’s a reason I feel I can’t say this, though I often feel it. I can’t say we’ve been robbed, because our trip home would have been a GIFT. It was not and is not owed to us. We do not deserve to go home. We are not entitled to a trip home. If we make it home at all, it will be an enormous GIFT. This might sound unnecessarily harsh, but this truth is something that God put on our radar one week before we needed it to be. 

Chelsey and I have been reading one chapter a week of an A.W. Tozer book called “The Pursuit of God”. Just prior to any idea that the Corona virus was sneaking up on us, we read a chapter titled “The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing”. The theme verse of the chapter is one of the Beattitudes in Matthew 5.

 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” 

As much as I’d love to type out the entire chapter, because it’s so challenging and well-written, I will try to communicate why the message of the chapter is a needed reminder for us all right now. Tozer introduces his chapter as so. 

“There is within the human heart a tough, fibrous root of fallen life whose nature is to POSSESS, always to possess. It covets things with a deep and fierce passion. The pronouns “my” and “mine” look innocent enough in print, but their constant and universal use is significant… They are verbal symptoms of our deep disease… Things have become necessary to us, a development never originally intended. God’s gifts now take the place of God, and the whole course of nature is upset by the monstrous substitution.” 

I remember Chelsey and I cringing when we read this, even before all our plans were changed, because of how convicting these words are. How often do we think that our plans are OUR plans? How often do we feel that our pregnancy is OUR pregnancy? How often do we believe our baby on the way is OUR baby? 

Again, you may feel like I’m taking this too far. Of course some of the things we have in life are really ours, right? And when I say “ours”, I mean it in the sense that they belong to us, for us to do whatever we want with them or to them. I think this is how Tozer defines it, though I guess I can let him speak for himself. 

“(Jesus) referred to this tyranny of things when He said to his disciples, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.” Matt. 16:24-25. Breaking this truth into fragments, it would seem that there is within each of us an enemy which we tolerate at our peril. Jesus called it “life” and “self”… Its chief characteristic is its POSSESIVENESS: the words gain and profit suggest this. To allow this enemy to live is, in the end, to lose everything. To repudiate it and give up all for Christ’s sake is to lose nothing at last, but to preserve everything unto life eternal. And possibly also a hint is given here as to the only effective way to destroy this foe: it is by the cross. “Let him take up his cross and follow me”.

How different is this from the way the world thinks? It is completely counter-cultural! I know because of the amount of tension this stirs in me, even as I read it for the fifth or sixth time.

Tozer drives home his point by retelling the story of Abraham and his son Isaac. God tells Abraham to sacrifice his promised son Isaac, and Abraham faithfully obeys God. At the exact moment he lifts up the knife to kill Isaac, God stops him. I’ve often wondered why the heck God put poor Abraham through all that strife, if he didn’t actually want Isaac sacrificed in the first place. In my own life, as I’m expecting a son this summer, it’s hard for me to imagine myself obeying God if he were asking me to do the same. To sacrifice my son for him. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t. 

I’d argue with God. I’d tell him what I think He wants. Because from God’s perspective, I believe he wants us to have loving, healthy families, food to eat and a roof over our heads. He wants my son to grow up healthy and strong, and live a long life. I do actually believe that God does desire these things for us. But, they are not due to us. If we have or get to experience any of these good things, it is only because of God’s grace. These are all gifts. Also, notice how I even said “my” son. Is he really going to be mine?

In fact, nowhere in the Bible does God tell us that we are entitled to any one thing, other than death. Romans 6:23 tells us that “the wages of sin is death”, and we all sin, so we all earn death for ourselves. We deserve it. But we deserve nothing else. Literally everything good, necessary, life-giving thing we have is a gift. Everything. 

This might seem like an extreme, unkind message. But God has shown Chelsey and I how important understanding this all is, now more than ever. Once we truly see this as true, and believe that we don’t actually own or possess anything, then we can shift our attitudes from self-entitlement to thankfulness. 

It seems backwards, and if you feel this way, then you’re understanding correctly what I’m trying to say. It seems backwards because it is so natural for us to believe we possess. Tozer explains:

“There can be no doubt that this possessive clinging to things is one of the most harmful habits in life. Because it is so natural, it is rarely recognized for the evil that it is. But its outworking are tragic. We are often hindered from giving up our treasures to the Lord out of fear for their safety. This is especially true when those treasures are loved relatives and friends. But we need have no such fears. Our Lord came not to destroy but to save. Everything is safe which we commit to Him, and nothing is really safe which is not so committed.”

We’ve been convinced that this message is true. We are convinced that we are not entitled to a trip home to Connecticut, to share our pregnancy with our loved ones. It would have been an enormous gift, for us and for our families. And don’t get me wrong, we are incredibly sad about it. God knows we are sad. But He also knows what He’s doing, way better than we do, and for that I am thankful. I am also thankful that Chelsey and I are together, and getting to share in our pregnancy with each other. This is not promised to us, or to anyone else. I am thankful that we have the ability to get pregnant. That God is providing for us to be trained as tribal church planters. I am thankful for Jesus. These are all the massive gifts that God has blessed me with, that I may not have been able to fully appreciate if I was still blinded with anger that I did not get to go home. God is currently, slowly, helping us open our hands and ease our grips on our trip home. 

Now I ask you, reader, what are you holding onto too tightly? What are you wrongly convinced is yours? What are you POSSESSING? Maybe God is asking you, as He has asked Chelsey and I, to give up your sense of entitlement in this time of ruined plans. Tozer concludes his chapter thus: 

“If we would indeed know God in growing intimacy, we must go this way of renunciation. And if we are set upon the pursuit of God, He will sooner or later bring us to this test. Abraham’s testing was, at the time, not known to him as such, yet if he had taken some course other than the one he did, the whole history of the Old Testament would have been different. God would have found His man, no doubt, but the loss to Abraham would have been tragic beyond the telling. So we will be brought one by one to the testing place, and we may never know when we are there. At that testing place there will be no dozen possible choices for us- just one and an alternative - but our whole future will be conditioned by the choice we make.” 

It seems now is a time of testing for many of us. What will you do? The choice is, ironically, yours. But the rest, is all God’s.