A great principle of the Christian life - and prayer - is losing yourself before gaining everything in God.
If you are like me, surrendering yourself is hard.
I think of the bitter weeping of Peter after he denied Christ and the sobering conversation he had with his Lord by the Sea of Tiberias after the resurrection.
Peter loved Jesus but when the crunch came, he was afraid for his life.
Yet some weeks later, Peter stood bravely before thousands of Jewish listeners and proclaimed the good news, prepared to give his life for the Lord.
He was a witness of the power of the resurrection, the triumph of the cross. And he was willing to give everything to tell others about this great truth.
In a sense, Peter was renewed. He surrendered himself to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Ruth Haley Barton, author of Invitation to Solitude and Silence, says that we need to come to the end of ourselves, sacrificing our self-centredness, in order to be rejuvenated by the presence of God.
So, I ask myself am I willing to give up the praise of others, the pats on the back I get for what I do? Am I willing to come before God and honestly admit my failures and weaknesses? Am I prepared to confess that I am helpless - unable to walk in his footsteps - without his power?
John the Baptist said it best when his followers complained that people were following Jesus rather than him after Jesus had been baptized by John in the Jordan river.
John said in John 3:30: "He must become greater; I must become less."
The process of stripping can be hard, Barton writes. We may become aware that our spiritual problems are not only caused by outside evil, "but also also a result of patterns of sin and brokenness that have hardened in and around our own heart".
Barton says that if we persist in turning to God during this time of stripping away our pride and self-sufficiency, "all of a sudden it becomes very quiet".
"The silence that comes after the chaos is pregnant with the presence of God."
In this silence, she says, "God grants a most powerful experience of his loving presence".
Barton, who went through this experience herself, writes that this becomes "one of the fullest experiences of the spiritual life".
"Finally, I am knowing in the depth of my experience that God is God for me and with me and in me."
For those who have taken this step, the renewal is worth the inner pain.
If you are like me, surrendering yourself is hard.
I think of the bitter weeping of Peter after he denied Christ and the sobering conversation he had with his Lord by the Sea of Tiberias after the resurrection.
Peter loved Jesus but when the crunch came, he was afraid for his life.
Yet some weeks later, Peter stood bravely before thousands of Jewish listeners and proclaimed the good news, prepared to give his life for the Lord.
He was a witness of the power of the resurrection, the triumph of the cross. And he was willing to give everything to tell others about this great truth.
In a sense, Peter was renewed. He surrendered himself to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Ruth Haley Barton, author of Invitation to Solitude and Silence, says that we need to come to the end of ourselves, sacrificing our self-centredness, in order to be rejuvenated by the presence of God.
So, I ask myself am I willing to give up the praise of others, the pats on the back I get for what I do? Am I willing to come before God and honestly admit my failures and weaknesses? Am I prepared to confess that I am helpless - unable to walk in his footsteps - without his power?
John the Baptist said it best when his followers complained that people were following Jesus rather than him after Jesus had been baptized by John in the Jordan river.
John said in John 3:30: "He must become greater; I must become less."
The process of stripping can be hard, Barton writes. We may become aware that our spiritual problems are not only caused by outside evil, "but also also a result of patterns of sin and brokenness that have hardened in and around our own heart".
Barton says that if we persist in turning to God during this time of stripping away our pride and self-sufficiency, "all of a sudden it becomes very quiet".
"The silence that comes after the chaos is pregnant with the presence of God."
In this silence, she says, "God grants a most powerful experience of his loving presence".
Barton, who went through this experience herself, writes that this becomes "one of the fullest experiences of the spiritual life".
"Finally, I am knowing in the depth of my experience that God is God for me and with me and in me."
For those who have taken this step, the renewal is worth the inner pain.
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