Dying to Yourself

For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better. Philippians 1:21 NLT

I was sitting at work the other day and I was singing to myself (hopefully not too loudly) the new song by Mercy Me: The Hurt and the Healer.  I LOVE music and I love a good song, and normally when I hear a new song, I really dig into the song by looking up the lyrics and really try to grasp the meaning of whatever song I'm interested in at that particular moment.  Strangely enough, I hadn't done that with this song.  I'd just learned the words (sidenote: it always amazes how our feeble brain--well, MY feeble brain--can memorize an entire song without even trying to) and didn't really focus on the meaning of the song.  If you haven't heard this song, it's about God meeting us at a place when we're broken, hurting, and just want to be healed by the Healer himself (this is my summary, anyways.)  


I liked the song, but while I was singing away aimlessly, I suddenly realized what the words were to the first part of the chorus: 

"I'm alive, even though a part of me has died."  

Now if you read this in the context of the song, I think what the writer of the song meant by "a part of me has died" was relating to possibly an event that caused terrible pain.  However,  where I am in my own life right now, it reminded me of something else.


The verse above (Phil 1:21) is immediately where my mind went when I realized what it was that I had been singing.  The Bible says that to live is Christ, and to die is gain.  It also says that we have to die to ourselves.  And the more we die to ourselves, the more alive we become in Christ.  Beautiful.


Let me confess this to you: while I've known Phil 1:21 since I was a kid, it wasn't until recently that I really started to understand what "dying to ourselves" truly means.  Yes, at 26 years of age, I'm just really starting to get a grasp on some things.


Here it is, in a nutshell, what God has been teaching me lately about dying to myself:

Like actual, physical death can be, dying to oneself can be PAINFUL.  But it's NECESSARY. 

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm pretty independent.  I can make my own decisions, can develop my own opinions, and set my own goals and aspirations for my life.  Sometimes, my own little plans have a way of developing their own goals and dreams.  Here's something that I'm learning: my goals, decisions, aspirations, opinions, etc., can, and, albeit painful at times, MUST, change sometimes to be in line for God's will for my life.  Now, do you all know what it means to change?!?  It means that my stubborn self has to let go of what I thought was right and good for me, and allow God to mold me and my decisions, goals, etc. into what HE wants them to be.  Sometimes, my current goals for my life, well, I'm kind of fond of them.  And I want them to be fulfilled RIGHT NOW.  But God's plan is far better than mine could ever dream of being.  


Thankfully, in walking with Christ daily, a lot of these goals, desires, decisions, etc, end up being right in line with Christ from the get go.  However, we're all human, and this world has a way of influencing us even when we don't mean for it to.  And that's where dying to ourselves comes in.  


God's will is far greater than anything.  His timing is perfect.  His plan is perfect.  If we (myself most definitely included) can learn to die to ourselves, the part of us that dies allows room for Christ to dwell. And it's through Him that we truly live.