Matt's Muzings
What Keeps Us from Being Ourselves?
May, 2007 Volume 9, Issue 76
As I write these Muzings I try and keep them as personal as possible. So after muzing about defensiveness, I have had new revelation myself on how I keep myself safe. After all, that is the very essence of what our defensiveness is supposed to do. (See the last 2 Muzings – as there is a very healthy aspect of defensiveness we all need.)
What keeps us from being ourselves?
There are basically two ways that I discovered that I move towards or away from expressing this defensiveness and not being myself.
1) I let people “use” me. I become an extension of their desires and do what I have too, to make them happy. I figure out what they want me to do and I do that.
2) I crawl in a hole inside myself and shut down and don’t do anything. I disappear and for all practical purposes cease to exist.
I look back over the years and see these two areas in many aspects of my life. . For the first area, when I needed attention I would play sports to please Dad and others.
In the second area, I can track it back to being a little boy. I would shut down and no one would know I was even there. One of my favorite books was My side of the Mountain, about a little boy who lived in a big tree on a mountain, all by himself. He was safe there
Wrong Foundations
Now the challenge is that the foundations for both of these were the same. A foundation of conformity and fear of man, which you know, is more like sand than rock.
Even to this day I can see my own reaction in working with others. I don’t want to use anyone. So I go out of my way to make sure they have a choice, (which is not wrong) but the foundation was a reaction out of my own broken foundation. I don’t want to use anyone so I go out of my way to make sure they ‘want’ to do it. As long as they want to do it, I feel safe.
All this has become really clear to me recently and I am not proud of it. It is a painful revelation and one that brings me back to God. I don’t want to be defensive by allowing myself to be used by others or hiding and not allowing myself to have desires or preferences. This robs God of the glory he deserves in me just being me.
As I am drawn deeper in God I can see it has even influenced my relationship with God himself. Over these last years I have been disappointed that God has not ‘used’ me. You see in my thinking, I am loved when I am ‘used’ by others or meet their expectations. So on a feeling level if God isn’t using me, I must not be loved.
As I said, it has become crystal clear to me and I am now trying to walk with God at a new depth and inviting him into this area of brokenness in my own life. In all this I realize, that humanity is more broken and defensive then we can possibly imagine.
Heart of God
I choose to exercise faith and I go through my fear of rejection and fear of man to the heart of my God. He loves me and will not ‘use’ me. He has only the best for me and refuses to build on foundations that in the long run will bring more pain and suffering for me and others around me. So He waits for me and exposes the lies that hold me captive. I am so thankful for a God who loves me more than I want to be loved and doesn’t give up on me when I have no idea how broken and lost I really am.
Join me in celebrating my brokenness that the Love of God would be fully manifest, for if God can love me, He can love anyone.
May God richly bless you,
Matt & Celia
Family Matters:
Matt: We had a great time with my family here for a couple of weeks. I taught in the Singapore DTS and did a couple of series in local churches. We are off for a couple weeks of teaching in Europe. We appreciate your prayers for us as a family.
Celia: We did have a great time with Matt’s family as he said. Even did a couple of touristy things that we had not done since we have been back in Singapore. We took a bumboat ride down the Singapore River and took the new Sentosa Express to Sentosa Island and went up the tower. Both gave us different perspectives of this city/ island. Sometime we need a fresh perspective on what is before us. This ability to see something from a different angle or view is a gift that God gives us. What ever you are facing this month my prayer is that our loving Father, his son and our brother Jesus and the precious Holy Spirit will give you a fresh life giving perspective. You are loved.
Josh: He just called and his truck wouldn’t start. He was at the beach and was trying to figure out how to get it home so that he could have some friends work on it. Ok, he got it out and fixed and it seems to be fine now. Whew… Other wise he is doing well.
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