LETTER NO. 01
Dear Mary,
I’ve been wanting to share something with you that God has been showing me because it feels like several things I’ve been reading are suddenly converging into one revelation.
While on vacation in early July, I was reading C.S. Lewis’s The Weight of Glory, and something he says in the first chapter stopped me. He points out that if you asked Christians today about the highest virtue, most would probably say “unselfishness,” whereas the great Christians of old would have said “love.”
Lewis says we’ve substituted a negative virtue for a positive one. With unselfishness, the emphasis can subtly remain on what I gave up rather than what I gave to someone else. Or what I gave Him.
That really struck me.
Even our “unselfishness” can still be about ourselves!
I can sacrifice something and quietly remain focused on my sacrifice. I gave this up. I denied myself this. Look what this cost me. Meanwhile, love isn’t staring at what it surrendered. Love is looking at the person it loves.
This took me back to Jeanne Guyon’s Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ, and she was pointing toward the same thing, only in our relationship with God.
In one of the early chapters she asks, essentially, why are you coming to Him? Is it for the sweetness? Is it because His presence feels good? Is it because of what you receive from Him? She writes about coming to God with “a full heart of pure love,” seeking nothing for ourselves, but simply wanting to please Him and do His will.
Lewis is asking: When you sacrifice, are you still thinking about yourself?
Guyon is asking: When you seek God, are you still thinking about yourself?
I’m studying Genesis right now, and as I was reading the first chapter, I kept seeing:
“God said…”
“God said…”
“God said…”
And this just added to it!
I realized that even some of the ways I have understood Christianity that I thought were completely unselfish were still centered around US.
We talk so much about Jesus coming to save us. Jesus died for us. God forgives us. God comforts us. God provides for us. God gives us peace. God has a plan for us.
And all of those things are gloriously true!
But we are not the center of the story.
Jesus’ ultimate purpose is not simply that He came along to rescue humanity once humanity sinned.
I stopped after I kept reading parts where God’s WORD spoke things into existence, and I remembered John says, “In the beginning was the Word…” I realized in that moment, as I truly digested the fact that Jesus was always there, that He wasn’t just there to come and save us after we sinned.
So if He was there BEFORE sin, then His purpose isn’t simply to save us from our sin. In fact, it’s more evident to me now than ever that HE is the purpose for all creation.
Before there was sin, there was Christ.
Before there was a need for a Savior, there was Christ.
Before there was an “us,” there was Father, Son, and Spirit.
And creation itself was made through Christ and for Christ.
That changes everything for me.
I’ve realized how easy it is to make even Christianity revolve around ourselves without recognizing we’re doing it.
Again, celebrating what God has done for us isn’t wrong. Scripture celebrates those things too. That’s not what I’m saying.
But I’m beginning to ask myself: What if I came before God and, for once, wasn’t thinking about what He does for me at all?
What if the next time I fast, I’m not focused on what I gave up?
What if the next time I pray, I go to HIM FOR HIM? Simply because it pleases Him. Not because He loves me, but because I LOVE HIM.
What if I worshipped because He is God? Not because of what He saved me from.
What if I loved Him without immediately thinking about how His love makes me feel?
What if I stopped measuring what I was giving up for Him?
What if I was with Him fully and wasn’t even seeking the feeling of His presence?
What if my heart simply said:
You are worthy.
I love You.
What pleases You?
Maybe that’s part of what it actually means to die to self.
Not becoming obsessed with denying ourselves, because ironically, even that keeps our eyes fixed on ourselves.
Instead, maybe self begins disappearing when our attention becomes increasingly consumed with HIM.
Lewis shows me how self can hide inside unselfishness.
Guyon shows me how self can hide inside spirituality.
And Genesis is showing me that self can even hide inside the way I understand the entire story of Christianity.
It’s as though God keeps turning my face away from myself and saying, “This was always about Me.”
And strangely, that doesn’t make His love for us smaller. It makes it infinitely bigger.
We get to participate in something so much greater than ourselves.
I’ve been sitting with all of this, and it is really changing my heart.
And maybe that is the invitation:
To stop asking only what God can do for us, what He can give us, what we can feel in His presence, or even what we can sacrifice for Him.
And simply look at Him.
To go to God for God.
To love Him because He is worthy of being loved.
To worship Him because He is God.
Love and prayers,
Britt
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