How tiring it is, what the world talks about today. I, I, I, and always I. My needs. How I feel. What I’m missing. How to take care of myself. A narrative.
It’s easy to succumb to it. It’s easy to justify it. And it’s easy to desire it.
Because, of course, it’s about me. I need to take care of myself before I take care of others. I won’t last long without proper self-nourishment.
But it is so short. To reach deepest into the self. When I was created by Someone so much wiser. So much greater. So much stronger. So much beyond myself. (1)
If I look only at myself, I limit my possibilities to myself. Instead of drawing closer to the One who knows me. And who knows how I work. (2) And who can do far beyond what I need and what I imagine to be my best help.
I’m counting the words here. I’ve been dealing with them for three weeks now, and with the topic for several months. Because I’m exploring the distinction within myself. Between me and Him. Between the partial me and Him in me.
And I’m thinking about how to help this me. How to soothe it in the challenges that are, after all, so real. I don’t want to deny anything difficult. To downplay fatigue or helplessness. But I also don’t want to remain sorry for Ania.
It is short, though. To reach deepest into the self. Time alone. Pursuing my passions. Analyzing behavior. Naming. New reaction paths. Developing habits. Something that’s supposed to bring relief.
I’ve been trying psychotherapy for some time now. Oh, how good it feels to talk to someone. For fifty minutes, be completely selfish and just talk about myself. Ask about every thought, every doubt. Discuss things from yesterday and memories from when I was five. Psychotherapy gives me insight. Oh, that’s interesting. Oh, indeed. It gives me an understanding of the consequences. Oh, I’ve carried it with me ever since. Oh, I know now why I react the way I do. It’s my focus on the self. It reaches deepest into the self.
But it does not saturate me with life. For there is no encounter with the One who is Life. It stops at the psyche (soul, mind, broadly defined psyche).
I would like to be able to reach heaven’s resources in every situation. I know they are there. (3) In a spacious space, for every circumstance, in every place of life where I seek and find myself as a human being. To take, free of charge. Bringing freedom. Not stemming from embracing the self, but from Him. From words of truth that set us free. (4)
This requires encounters. This requires pneumotherapy. For the perfect Spirit within the newborn, through our faith, would transform both – the soul (psyche) and the body (soma). (5) (6)
This requires encounters. With Him. Returning always to the One. This requires calling out to Him in every situation we face. This requires the wisdom that resides within Him. He imparts it generously and in every matter. (7) This requires His words that give life. That satisfy. (8)
It is too short for me to reach the deepest into my psyche. It will soothe me for a while. It will help, sure. But it is only a piece. Putting the puzzle together into a meaningful whole. Still, however, without Breath. Without the healing that can only come in unity with Him. (9)
When I was a teenager, I heard this verse in church:
“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20 NKJV
That day I ran home, took a marker, and wrote these words on the wall of my room. What could I have known of their meaning then? Yet the Spirit within me came alive and moved me with His breath. Unthinkable.
This is what I wait for, this is what I experience in part, this is what I strive for. In everything. As long as I am here. I choose to reach deeper, to Him.
Oh, what a relief it is not to look longer at myself only.
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(1) “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb.”
Psalms 139:13 NKJV
(2) “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.”
Psalms 139:14 NKJV
(3) “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,”
Ephesians 1:3 NKJV
(4) “Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.””
John 8:31-32 NKJV
(5) “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I Thessalonians 5:23 NKJV
(6) “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
Romans 12:1-2 NKJV
(7) “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.”
James 1:5 NKJV
(8) “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.”
John 6:63 NKJV
(9) “The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, And saves such as have a contrite spirit.”
Psalms 34:18 NKJV