Do You Believe in Me?

On November 13, 2009, I posted a "note" on my Facebook page entitled One of My Favorite Things. Ever.  Read slowly; there is no gristle.

"But there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away 'blindly' so to speak. Christ will indeed give you a real personality: but you must not go to Him for the sake of that. As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about self all together. Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principal holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs though all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in." C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

When I read that for the first time I had not even begun this journey. I had no idea what it would actually mean to me now, over a year later. After months of moving steadily in the same direction with a repetitive, habitual choosing to "do the next right thing," I am realizing something. What I am realizing is that I have  found the thing that I had no idea I was looking for all along. 


When I let the dream of an overnight transformation die...when I let my idea of who I should be die...when I took my eyes off of myself and my failure long enough...my focus shifted.

"Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him."

Wow. You can say that again, C.S.

I believe that we are all a creation of the Living God. That we are created in His image and that our REAL identity is in Him. I believe that He loves every last one of us so much that He wants to save us from ourselves. (We do some pretty rotten damage, do we not?) He made a way for us, through the blood of Jesus Christ, to be free and to have hope for a future-- make that an ETERNITY--of perfect peace.  I believe it because I've experienced it. No one can deny me this experience and what it has been based on--God's word. The proof is in the pages of this blog.

Let me ask you a question:

Do you BELIEVE in me?


Do you really believe I can do this, what I have set out to do? Do you believe I am strong enough? Do you believe I'm determined enough? Do you believe I'm capable enough? Do you believe that I will accomplish all my goals? Do you believe I will persevere? Do you believe I will beat the odds? Do you believe that I will finally be the person I was always meant to be?

Do you BELIEVE in me?



Don't believe in me. Believe in Him.