How Round-Up at Panera De-Supersized Me

Two falls ago on campus, I came into the year with tons of high hopes. Our ministry had grown the previous year to record numbers, we had some strong people in place and a clear vision and some good culture-changes. We were ready (so I thought) to take off.

And then the school year actually happened. And for a number of reasons (including some that I do not fully understand) the start of the year was a train-wreck. What I thought was going to be a year of momentum and success and growth started out a disaster.

And I became a train-wreck. I couldn't sleep at night. I was anxious, angry, taciturn, grumpy, perpetually frustrated. My wise wife saw how I was sinking with each successive speed-bump and she called me out: I needed some perspective on all of this. I took a four month sabbatical.

Over the course of my sabbatical, I spent countless hours at Panera with my Bible, journal, and my Ipod shuffled through Handel's "Messiah" endlessly. And while I sat there at Panera with my Bible, journal, and Handel, the Lord began to ask me some significant questions.

Who's kingdom was this about, really? Was this Jesus' kingdom or Alex's? Who's name was I seeking to advance? Was it about His name or mine?

In my self-deception I had taken my own ego and this work (supposedly done in God's name, for God's name) and made it all about me. I claimed it was all about Jesus, Lord over the universe. Really it was all about me, becoming super-sized. I spent many hours spraying the Round-Up of repentance on the roots of my self-absorption and re-rooting myself in Jesus

And so yesterday's post about the importance of overcoming our self-deception rang in my heart this morning as I read Jesus' question at the end of John to the guards who are coming to arrest him and take him to his execution: "Who is it that you seek?"

Jesus knows who they seek. They seek him--to arrest him and to kill him. He has been praying about this, talking about it with his friends the disciples. The question isn't out of ignorance, it is to bring what is being done in darkness into the light.

And the question has the same impact as I considered it today: who is it that I seek? Do I truly seek the One who made me, died for me, rose for me? Or do I seek a Jesus made in my own image? Do I seek to be like God (the first temptation) or do I seek the one who is God who invites me to make my dwelling in him and allow him to dwell in me?

Is this whole God thing really just an extension of my own ego or is it the Holy Other who comes to meet me but who will only meet me on his terms. There is no negotiation between my ego and Jesus. I will love one and hate the other. One will win and one will lose in the battle for supremacy in my heart.

Who is it that I seek? Is it Jesus or is it me, supersized?

For today, at least as best as I can see and know and understand, I give myself to Jesus. And I recognize that sometimes the one that I call Jesus can sometimes be just a smokescreen for self-advancement. And so I can only give all that I know of myself--including my perpetual temptation to self-deceive--to all that I know of Jesus and ask him to sort it all out.

Good thing he's good at that sort of thing.