Wings.

I have a knack for turning faith into a very selfish thing.

It's this human gunk in me, this constant pull I have inside to turn everything in life back on myself and make it about me.

I pray things like, "God, help me to be strong in faith," or "Lord, help me to get this or that job," or "Lord, I would really love to go to a Ray Lamontagne concert, and I know you have connections..."

You know. All that mememe stuff.

I am constantly asking Jesus to change me or make me better or give me an extra dose of patience, kindness, tenacity, etc. etc.

But I read something in Oswald Chambers' Utmost today that started me thinking that maybe all those "character development prayer requests" of mine might just be a waste of time, or even a subtle form of selfishness and disbelief.

Oswald writes,

"A pitiful, sickly, and self-centered kind of prayer and determined effort and selfish desire to be right with God are never found in the Christian Scriptures. The fact that I am trying to be right with God is actually a sign that I am rebelling against the atonement by the cross of Jesus....There is a great deal of prayer that comes from actual disbelief in the atonement. Jesus is not beginning to save us -- He has already saved us completely. It is an accomplished fact, and it is an insult to Him for us to ask Him to do what He has already done."

...

Jesus has already saved us completely.

...

Perhaps, then, my prayer life should start to look a little differently.

Perhaps, then, my thoughts should be focused in another general direction. One that is moving outward, away from myself.

David H. Stern says that "true humility implies having neither a higher nor lower opinion of oneself than one should," but maybe humility goes even further than that.

Maybe true humility is forgetting ourselves entirely.

Perhaps humility is getting lost in the identity of this man, Jesus, and letting his character cover each part of our meagar selves - the good, the bad, and the mediocre.

Because getting lost in Jesus allows for an amazing thing - being others-minded.

It plants in us outward focus.
It roots in us selflessness.
It grows in us humility.

When Jesus cloaks us in His character, it not only lets us forget ourselves, but it also springs up in us a desire to share the experience of it with those around us.

Because losing yourself in Jesus is a beautiful and a freeing thing, and coming into His presence, really and truly, is something impossible to keep to ourselves.

It bubbles up, it overflows, it transcends.

And I am finding that sometimes the best thing I can do, really, when I am facing a crisis or I am having a hard time liking myself (or I am feeling a little guilty for how much I truly dislike Sarah Palin) - sometimes the best thing I can do in moments like those is to pray for someone else.

To get outside of myself and be about something other - someone who is not.me.

Offering a prayer for someone else has the power to right my mind to things that are true - like who God is and what He's capable of - and that this life of mine is not really about me at all. It's about something so much bigger and more powerful than my lack of a job or how much money I have in the bank or the fact that I would really like to live in Israel (...but I mean, God, that's still a viable option, right?).

Also, there's the pure and simple fact that generosity always opens up the door for hope to flow in. Every time, it does this.

Generosity sheds light on the dusty, selfish places in our hearts and shakes them out like a rug that has been too long indoors, reminding us of beauty and the miraculous and light.

Generosity uplifts us to a higher place. A place of truth. A place of reminder. A place of purpose.

...

So, perhaps humility doesn't really look like us being down on ourselves and obsessively working, striving, and praying hard hard hard to be better.

Perhaps true humility is recognizing the fact that already, we are better, because of nothing else than the incredible gift of God's grace and Jesus' sacrifice -

And then, because of that belief, humility motivates us to get to the task at hand - drawing near to the character of Jesus, letting Him cover us, and then bringing that same Jesus out into the world as we wear His name, bringing others near to it as well.

And the exciting thing is that what follows humility is usually grace. And when we get to grace, we're able to see people entirely better, with a lot more love.

Because that's what grace is, isn't it?

Choosing to see people as they could be.

I mean, that's what God does.

He chooses, every day,
not to see us as we are,

but as ones

sheltered
covered
redeemed

under the wings of grace.