Day 6 - Connecting/Capacity (Tiffany)

Consciously Say Good-Bye to Selfishness

If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. - Matthew 6:30

I think that most of what the Lord is digging up out of my soul through this Soul Fast is that part of me that is so selfish. My ex-husband used to say that I was so selfish and he said this more than I cared to hear. No one had ever called me selfish in my life and I didn't want to accept what he was saying. But the reason why I could not accept what he was saying is because I never looked at the Word in a way where I saw that part of myself, and when I began to look into it that way, God started tearing some things down.

Initially, I didn't want to change, but I believe that the Lord works on us in a way that first He reveals our sin to us, whereas before we never saw it and was okay living that way, but when He first reveals it, we don't automatically change/repent. We may first struggle with giving it up and confessing it to God. But overtime, when we truly desire to go deeper with God, we have the desire and we say we give ourselves away, usually meaning that thing that we have been struggling with giving away, or why God hasn't been able to use us fully because of that one area.

Ultimately, the Lord is changing our character to look like the image of His Son, on a day by day basis as we submit ourselves to Christ.

Humble yourselves before God, voluntarily submitting yourself to weakness, limitations, and to feasting on His Word, expect His grace to save your soul by healing, empowering, directing, and seeing.

You see the issue I have with getting rid of my selfishness, is that it's not clear-cut like the outward sins that I gave to God and have been trusting Him for over the years (drunkenness, fornication, lying, stealing)...you see with selfishness, it's hard for me to determine when I'm being selfish because I'm so used to myself...anyway, I now understand a major reason is that I'm selfish because I'm trying to protect myself from harm and danger. I noticed that for many years, it's hard for me to hug others, because I feel that I cannot trust who I am hugging, because in my mind, I think of it in a way as me getting a hug from them and that they don't mean the hug that they're giving. I try to turn my thinking around to be a Giver of hugs instead of a Getter of hugs, but it's very difficult. I would say there was a point in my life after coming to Christ where I gave real true genuine hugs out of concern for others, but it was short-lived...I think when I started fellowshipping at a former church, I felt that the people there were friendly but not genuine, and I began to put up walls, as I put those walls up, I also was dealing with how to break the walls in my own marriage, which was hard to do, I didn't know how to let go of things...so this whole ordeal has transformed into having a difficult time in reaching others because I cannot get thoughts about myself and what I need or want out the way...I have a hard time not concentrating on what I'm getting instead of focusing on Giving...and this is really what Matthew 6:33 is about! You put the Kingdom of God and His righteousness first, not what you are struggling with when it comes to others.

I think it's a process, but it's really deep. I'm glad I'm going through the soul fast and this is one of the things that I am purposing to eliminate in my life and I will start that by not focusing on myself so much, eliminating negative thinking and my new habits will be to memorize scripture, to change my mindset, practice complimenting others and praising God when I am able to actually give to others.

I think a good way to start that is to greet people at church. I think when I was a greeter at my first church, I broke that barrier and really was ministering through greeting, but in between all that has happened in my life, that part is no longer inside of me and I need to get back to that and start loving others from there. I believe that will change my prayer life as well on how I intercede for others, I won't necessarily feel the need to have to talk to them and tell them that I prayed for them, but I just need to do it, genuinely.