The selfie is just another symptom.

This week's was from C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity.

God simply says, I want all of you!!

How do I react to that blunt and definitive statement? There doesn't seem to be a lot of margin here for discussion. I look around at the Christian world and go, OK, what does this look like? I am not sure I see too many examples. I have been thinking about this for a week and have come up with a few observations.

Firstly, I personally don't find it difficult to give it all to God at any given moment. My big problem is having given it to God is to leave it there with God. I am rather prone to take things back and try and do it in my own strength. I can tend to have my own agenda on certain things and if doesn't seem to go the way I would like or in the time frame I would like, I can often take back over the controls. I live in an age where being master of your destiny and in control are cultural gems, things to be sought after. Here however my Heavenly Father is saying, Give all to me. It is very counter cultural and counter intuitive, it does not fit with much we see around us.

We in the western countries are the "self help" and "self made" culture. There lies the key: God would have us surrender "self" to him, so that  he comes first. You see God doesn't want to modify  "self", he wants to kill it and replace it with the image of his Son. I have to treat myself as an addict, I am addicted to "self" and God wants to replace that with a dependence on him. This can be quite scary - if I give all I am to God, will I still be me? The answer to that is probably not as I am now, because the present me is a shadow of who God created me to be. God has so much more but that can be rather scary.

For me the addict picture works well because it allows me freedom to fail and start again which addicts do on a regular basis in recovery. When I feel as though I have it all together I may be able to give it all to God in the morning, but on a bad day I may be down giving my all back to God to every 5 minutes. As I continue to practice giving myself to God, I will become more attuned to knowing when I have taken parts of self back. Practice will in fact ultimately make perfect!

As with addicts, I don't think that you can master this process alone; you have to work in community. This was modeled by Jesus, he lived and worked in community because God himself is community in  the Trinity. Jesus' heritage is based on the Hebrew culture which centered around the family as a source of learning and development. This is a community-based model that values relationships and intimate knowledge of the people in the group. Our modern churches are based on a Greek model also  common at the time, which has teaching and learning at its center. Only as I move away from individualistic culture into a community culture will things begin to change. The focus moves from myself to God and others. Therefore change begins.

The best illustration of community would seem to be a good marriage where through love, transparency, and intimate knowledge growth and development take place. After all, Christ is coming back for a bride, so that type of relationship will be at the heart of what the church is about. Through community we learn to give "self" away to take on all the God has for us.

So next time you take "a selfie" make sure there are others in the picture!!