The Destructiveness of Self-effort

As our journey into healing continues, I have become increasingly aware of how easy it is to revert back to relying on my understanding and from there moving back into striving and self-effort. The pull to self-reliance can be remarkably subtle--even when I think I am trusting in God God in His kindness often reveals otherwise :-) The truth is, anytime I am evaluating, making judgments, etc., independently of Him, I am at least to some extent leaning on my understanding and not His wisdom.

The good news in all this is that God is hanging onto us very tightly and continues to pursue us with a tenacity that is unparalleled in the Universe! And when He catches us, He gently but firmly pries our hands off the controls and woos us back to trustful surrender.

But why is it so important to run from self-effort? I suppose there are many reasons, but a couple that have come to mind of late are worth sharing, I think. First, when I started this journey into intimacy with Papa about 6 years ago, one of the first things He told me was that any return to self-effort would make me vulnerable to the enemy's tactics because I would then be trusting in me and not Him. Those words from Him really got my attention at the time, but I am still learning to live this out. And recently I have learned this lesson in powerful new ways. The slightest movement towards self-reliance, striving, etc., immediately exposes me to fear which in turn leads me into even more self-focus--you can see that this leads to a vicious cycle (which Papa in His kindness always interrupts at some point!). The truth is that faith is the total transfer of trust from me to God, and any trace of striving or self-trust moves me away from faith in Papa God. Note well, though, my reference to God reaching out to me when I revert to self--I recognize more than ever that I cannot "do faith" by fixing myself even when I discover that I have again chosen to rely on my judgment! Faith really is, I think, more collapse and rest than anything else.

But there is a second reason that self-effort is to be abhorred, and this one strikes at the heart of things. Self-effort is a declaration of independence from the One who loves us most. When I choose to "lean on my own understanding" I am by default turning away from the face of the One who loves me most. When I first started this journey, my concern about self-reliance was far more focused on me, but 6 years down the road my pain now comes at the thought of bringing harm to the One who loves me so well. True, God needs nothing but He is a Person who loves and rejoices and cares about us. This means that we can bring Him joy and pleasure by our loving responsiveness to Him. It also means that I can "hurt His heart" by turning from Him. And so my horror at self-effort/self-reliance grows as my love for Him grows.

Does this make sense? I think of something Brother Lawrence wrote long ago in which he compared the inward turning away from God as the same kind of an affront that would come to a friend in our living room from whom we simply walked away. That picture from Brother Lawrence has always stuck with me. The One who loves me most and whom I can constantly communicate with, invites, even compels, my full attention, something that I cannot give when I turn to self! Yet apart from His help, I will indeed find myself turning from Him to self, leaving my Friend and Father in my living room while I attend to less important things. But always He is inviting me back!

Thank you, my Abba, for so often wooing me back into the "River of your delights," out of the desert of my self-effort and self-reliance!

Learning to lean on Him...

Tom, one of Abba's little children