more than this

I’ve been thinking a lot about dreams lately.  Eight years ago, I had an epiphany of sorts, realizing that my dream for my life had changed dramatically.   Today, if I’m brutally honest – I don’t think I ever really let go of my old dream completely, even while embracing a new one.  I think I was actually hoping for a sort of both/and situation.

But I didn’t get it.

I’ve come a long way – as a person, as a leader, and as a follower of Jesus.  I have completely embraced the fact that I am called to teach, to write, to lead, to have a voice, and to do All The Things (whatever they end up being) that He calls me to… which is one of the many reasons the past few months have been so difficult.  When life as I knew it came to a screeching halt at the end of last year, I found myself suddenly without place; the venues in which I’d been teaching and leading were suddenly gone, and while I do still have a small community of people around me, it is very definitely not the same.  And because my story has changed, my writing has changed, too.  (I mean, it’s sort of hard to write about leadership when you’re not leading anything.)

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One of the verses on my Emergency Scripture List is probably one of the most-quoted passages in the gospels; the concept of taking up our crosses and following Jesus is a familiar one to most of us, tho we often over-allegorize it and call hard things crosses when they’re really just hard things…

Then he said to them all: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.  For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.  What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?” – Luke 9:23-25

In truth, it’s only verses 23-24 that are on my Emergency Scripture List, but I kept reading, and verse 25 practically leapt off the page at me tonight.  “How have I never seen this?!”  I wondered.  And then I realized, after searching several translations and finding a footnote, that growing up, I’d always heard it translated as losing your soul – not your self – though in truth, they are likely the same thing.  But there was something about the newer phrasing that spoke to my soul: “Don’t get lost.”

I love the way Eugene Peterson phrases it in The Message: Then he told them what they could expect for themselves: “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat – I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? – Luke 9:23-25

What good would it do to get everything you want, and lose yourself?  Maybe it’s a rhetorical question; clearly the answer is: it won’t do you any good at all.  It would be terrible if that happened.

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However metaphorical it might be, there’s still a very real sort of death that happens when everything falls apart and the dreams you thought you had are very clearly not going to be reality (at least, not in the ways you expected).  It’s no easy thing, letting go of the dreams you once had in favor of the unknown.  Trust is now a commodity – its value higher, because suddenly it’s costing you something to have it.

But surrender, in this moment, is the way home.

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Jeff Goins says it so well in the introduction to his new book, The Art of Work: “Each of us has had surprises and setbacks in life, disappointments that have disrupted what we thought was the way.  And we’re left with something that looks less like a personal purpose and more like a mess.”  Yes.  That.

But he goes on to say, “Maybe we all have the power to turn our lives into significant stories if we start to see our difficulties as opportunities.  We can’t control what life throws our way, but we can control how we react to it.  As we do, maybe we come closer to a meaningful life than any plan could ever take us.”

There are two very different perspectives that exist about work.  One perspective says that it doesn’t really matter what you do – that a job can simply be a means to an end.  You are more than your work, so go make some money, and find your meaning doing other things outside of work.  The other perspective says that you were created for a purpose, and that life is too short to waste doing things that make you unhappy – so find (or create for yourself) a job doing something you love.

And maybe there’s a middle ground and a way to end up doing something you love after some time in the trenches doing things that you don’t – but my point is far less about actual work than it is about meaning.  Because we are created with purpose, and when we are not living into who He meant for us to be, there’s another kind of death that happens.

We begin to lose ourselves.

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I’ve wrestled with a lot with feeling really lost over the past few weeks. So eventually I had to start standing up against all the well-meaning voices advising me to “just get a job” (which is not as simple a task as you might think), and remember that I was made for more than this.  I’ve had to start continually reminding myself that no matter what kind of a job I may end up in, I am called to teach, to write, to lead, to have a voice, and to do All The Things (whatever they end up being) that He calls me to. I don’t want to lose myself; I want to find myself in Him, and be the kind of person who is focused on living into who He’s making me to be.

I’ve experienced so much loss this year: leaving two jobs I loved, watching a handful of friendships fade, slowly and painfully surrendering my own dreams and plans for my life.  I’ve had to learn what it is to trust Him when it costs me something to do it.

But it is in this dying to myself that I am finding my real self.

I was made for so much more than this.  And so, my friends, were you.