“The more we divest ourselves of ourselves, the better our lives get.”

A thought by Brant Hansen (2015-04-14) from his book, Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better (p. 199). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title of the book to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

Now that is what I want. What about you? But that doesn’t really make sense, does it?

Brant says, “Choosing to be unoffendable means choosing to be humble. Not only that, the practice teaches humility. Once you’ve decided you can’t control other people; once you’ve reconciled yourself to the fact that the world, and its people, are broken; once you’ve realized your own moral failure before God; once you’ve abandoned the idea that your significance comes from anything other than God, you’re growing in humility, and that’s exactly where God wants us all. It’s contrary to seemingly everything in our culture, but the more we divest ourselves of ourselves, the better our lives get. Jesus told us as much. He said if we’d give up our lives, for His sake, we’d find real life.”

So that is what it takes. Brant goes on, “When we surrender our perceived ‘rights,’ when we let go of our attempts to manipulate, we find— surprise!— joy.”

He then says, ‘Why am I so stressed? Why do I need to pretend I can control people? Why do I need to make myself ‘significant’? Why do I think I need to assess other people spiritually? Why am I always trying to assess myself spiritually? Why do I need to defend myself? God is my Defender. He’s in control. And no, I don’t know where I’m going, but I know He loves me.”

And there it is, “I know He loves me.” When I really come to believe that, when I really realize that He loves me, that I am loved, then I really, really find joy.

Have you found that out yet?

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