What about how I feel? Does God care?
My struggle with learning to ‘deny myself’ and how I overcame it.
“Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.”
When I first started getting into Christianity one of the main things I continued to hear is deny, deny, deny. If I didn’t agree with something the bible said I felt as if my opinion didn’t matter to God. As a Christian I was supposed to continuously deny myself regardless of my opinion on what was right and what was wrong. I remember feeling angry and confused. Why do I have to live a life where I’m continuously denying myself? What is the purpose of living my life if it’s not about me, but about someone else? At one point I felt like my growth kind of staggered because I couldn’t rap my head around the thought of just being on earth so I could deny myself. Then in end still in be “hated” by people like Jesus said himself.
Instead of the old famous term Y.O.L.O (You only live once)… I began thinking like it should me more like Y. O. L. F. G. (You only live for God.)…Literally.
Wait, But didn’t Christ also deny himself?
As I continued to study the bible to understand who God was and why he thought the way he did, I began to realize that my own thought pattern was wrong. I had to take a step back and say, if he didn’t care for me why did he die for me? I had to realize that Christ himself also denied himself. So it wasn’t like he expects us to do something he didn’t do. Actually in my own opinion, Christ expects less of us because he isn’t asking us to fast in the dessert for 40 days…like he did. Take on the sins of the world… like he did. Or even be beaten, spit on and mocked before we die …like he endured. Yes, he is asking for us to deny ourselves but Christ himself had to endure everything he went through so we may be saved. We are not required to go through any of those exact same painful endings as him just to have salvation.
I should be mad at EVERYONE then.
What I had to realize is there is a ‘head’ to every breathing thing in life. We can‘t always be the head or boss of everything because there will always be someone higher than us who tells us what to do. We have C.E.O’s, parents, judges even the president that we usually take orders from or have to obey in some shape or form. Having to deny ourselves is actually a natural thing. I could feel like I’m hungry so I want to steal or take some candy from a shop. But the law is I have to pay for it. I could want to hang out late with my friends but my mom said I have a curfew. I could want to work a certain job where I wouldn’t have much time to spend with my Husband but I wouldn’t because I knew it would upset him. In all these cases I would have to deny myself and what I wanted just for someone else. So…If I was mad at God for having to deny myself then I shouldn’t I be mad at my husband, my mom, these politicians and, my boss too?
What is the standard from a changing human?
What is right? What is wrong? No matter who you ask you will always get a wide spectrum of answers. Let’s look at this from a non christian Stand point. If you ask someone if lying is wrong, someone may say yes lying is wrong. Someone else may say no it’s not wrong if you only do it here and there and if it’s for a good reason. This goes for abortion, homosexuality, racism, sex before marriage…anything! So with so many different answers how do we actually know? We need a standard of what is right and what is wrong. That is why God sets the standard for all to follow. No one is excluded. To add on to all of this… As humans our feelings change. We can think one day that abortion is right and then go home and think it over and decide that abortion is actually wrong. So because there is no direct right or wrong answers as humans and because our feelings change this is exactly why we need God and his standard. It is not because he doesn’t care about our feelings. It’s not because he wants us to only selfishly make our lives about him. It’s truly because he knows best and he loves us.
Much love,
-Alex
