The Real Self

Thanks to Ann Knight I'm reading A Year With C.S. Lewis.  Yesterday's excerpt is from one of his well know books, Mere Christianity, which I read in my first couple months here in Peru.  The excerpt is entitled: The Real Self.

I feel like this is a summation of my struggles and even the inwardly focused prayers recently for my attitude instead of intercessory prayer for those that we are discipling.  God wants to hear our petitions, but at times where so consumed with our own circumstances that we do little for those around us.  So, I want to share this word that makes all the difference in whom I will become and the impact that I'll have here.  It may have some correlation to your current state as well.

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 the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle 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 through 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 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.

What appropriate words. 

So right now, I'm just hanging out in the "Mak", listening to classical music, reading and pondering what God is trying to do in me and through me.  As far as class goes, we finished our accelerated class on world religions and sects last Friday and I did really well on the test.  This week we are learning Biblical Bases of the Integrated Disciple (of course, entirely in Spanish).  We're practicing the materials that we'll use in our cell groups. 

Sunday, we went to Chachani - a preaching point for my church  at the foot of the volcanoes - to play with the kids and we'll return to do Bible lessons with them.  Monday, after class, I played basketball with some friends and went the office to record a quick testimonial in Spanish - I really should have written it down...I struggled to remember most of it and had to do a few retakes.  Last night, (Monday night) we had our cell group meeting, in which we gave a report of how things are going in our cell groups, we prayed for them in general and for the individuals within them, and we heared a word of encouragement from the Pastor.  Today, after 6am prayer we had school from 8:30-1:30, lunch with all of the Extreme Staff and other 40/40 cohort. 

If you'd like to join me in praying for our cell group members - many whom work all day 6-7 days a week and really struggle to find time off, that would be the best thing you could do to support our ministry here.  Pray that God provides for their needs and reveals Himself to them in the midst of this new journey that they are on.  Please pray especially for Freddy Salas who is separated from his wife and having problems with work.  And also for Javier Jova who is the 28 or 30 year old that opened his home for our cell group in Hunter.  He is extremely hungry to learn the word of God and continue to grow.  Zelmira, whom you met in the last blog is still hoping to receive her kids back from Cusco.  Pray for my real self to surface as I pick up my cross daily - or at least attempt to.  Thanks for all your support!