I'm sitting here at Robarts library at the University of Toronto taking a break from writing a paper on whether or not the social reformers of the 19th century in Canada were trying to control the people or were they really trying to just help the people out of the goodness of their own hearts. It's funny cause my natural inclination is to say "Of course they are out for their own good. All people are out for their own good. It is our very nature." But the problem with that is that it has consequences for my own life if I truely believe that.
I have had the privilege of traveling to Romania and working with The Romania Project
which works with orphans and orphanages while they struggle out of a dark period in Romanian history while Ceausescu was in power. Sometimes I feel very good about myself for doing this. Other times I feel like I really haven't done anything too special. But the question that keeps on coming up while doing this paper is Are my intentions in helping these people for my own good or are they truly rooted in my desire to help people? Since I can't really know the real intentions of my heart, due to human nature of deceiving its own self, I need to ask questions and explore this idea while doing the paper.
I can make some educated, or uneducated guesses, at this point though. I feel that my natural inclination, as I already mentioned, is to be selfish. Something about this project makes me feel self worth. Maybe it is the countless praises I get from people who think that what I am doing is "quite amazing" or "really honourable" in a world that seems to have given into the marketing that says that we deserve what we want now. And maybe that is exactly what I am doing. I want in the deepest depths of my heart to be worth something to other people. I don't care about the material wealth of this world but I deeply care that people think I have integrity, wisdom, and a heart for others. But this leaves me in a bit of a dilemma. The very things that I want people to think about me or know about me are coming from my involvement in something that I feel is actually selfish(when I'm honest with myself). So how do I change this?
I struggle constantly with reliance on God. The phrase "die to yourself daily" has always been said and so rarely lived out. When I am grounded in the fact that I really can't do anything by myself(which is one of my two different moods I go back and forth from when thinking about my involvement) I actually feel very secure in what I am doing. Not because it comes from me but due to the fact that God is doing it through me. It is kinda like drinking water. God knows we need it in abundance. He could of designed us to open up our heads and pour water directly into our system so that it could get right to work in hydrating our bodies. Instead he gave us a small opening with taste buds and nerve endings to feel the coolness and the taste of a big glass of water. God could do all of this without me. There is no doubt about that. In fact, I most definitely hinder what God could be doing in Romania or in the lives of those orphans because of my own selfishness or lack of discipline. But God wants us to die to ourselves every day in order that we can taste what he is doing through us. He wants us to become other-centred with the knowledge that we might not gain anything but heartache and fatigue coupled with frustration. But doesn't that somehow lighten the load of the people who we engage and love while they are suffering? When someone close to you experiences sorrow or pain why do we try and comfort them? It doesn't really make us feel good. In fact, it actually makes us feel worse then before we engaged them. But for some reason we desire to lighten their burden and journey with them. And isn't that the heart of God?
SO, all of this says one thing to me. I need to die to myself and let God use me through his ultimate wisdom and righteousness to actually move outside of the bear trap called human nature that has me within its grips.