Disillusioned Self-Love

"Discouragement is disillusioned self-love" Oswald Chambers

This statement is strangely encouraging to me. It seems to both frame discouragement as a positive occurrence--for is it not good for our self-love to become disillusioned?--while it also emphasizes that we are not meant for lives of discouragement. Chambers is calling us to Christ-love in which the self is so hid in Him that it is essentially forgotten. If our sole love and desire is Christ, then there is never need to be discouraged because He is ours and we are His, now and always.


I must say, I am perplexed in entering the question of a right self-view. A godly self-view. I know that self-esteem does not really fit, so I had thought something such as self-compassion might have potential... But then there is humility, as well... I think I would like to know more about humility, but by its nature, it seems to be a rather elusive construct.

Humility and otherness. Forgetting self and yet finding yourself so connected to others that you think on them as you would think on yourself. Hm... I want to go back and review what Lewis says about these matters.

Ah, high school

Now I'm not saying I would want to do it all over again or anything... But sitting here watching/helping my cousin Hilary with her 10th grade homework, there is something to be said for brief, daily assignments that one loses moving onto college. I suppose this simply speaks to the nerd I was in high school (yeah, yeah, and still am), but I really did enjoy that feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment in completing 20 algebra problems, diagramming 10 sentences, memorizing a few Bible verses, etc.

I suppose my longing for these simpler days is amplified by the replacement of said assignments by a 100 page research paper to be completed over the span of 2 years. Ah, grad school.

Boys and Love... well, new commandment love, that is

Being friendly with boys is such a precarious endeavor, and one with which I seem to be quite clumsy. Of late I have found myself being strangely bold and conversational with all the wrong ones while erring towards aloof and inattentive with the right ones. Of course it could be that I think they are the right ones only because I have kept them at a distance... [If you are a boy reading this, please don't read too much into this, heh.]

But as I was saying, it is a precarious endeavor, and though I may not be quite as clumsy as I seem to myself, I do wonder at such relationships and what they should look like.

Which brings me to another question on my mind of late (and by "of late" I really mean off and on for several years). Jesus gave us a new command: to love one another. Further, he said that our obedience to this command is that by which others would recognize us as his disciples.

What then, I ask, does this love look like? Service, sacrifice, laying down your life for the other, considering the best interest of others before your own... I want to love as God desires me to, but I know that I do not. It makes me think of a discussion we had at dgroup last week about power and form... that power is ineffective without form. If I have the desire to love but no structure through which to channel this desire, the desire has no real impact.

The psychologist in me wonders that there isn't a more structured, practical way of learning how to better love. Granted I know it's a tricky balance between seeking to love in your own strength rather than in the only Strength that allows for true love... but still, it is a balance, no?
(And I sometimes wonder if we make it out to be "trickier" than it is...)

"Practice kindness and compassion each to his brother" Zechariah 7:9

These activities that we are to practice--kindness, compassion, love--just seem so abstract to me. I want an operationalization of them, something I can grab onto and actually practice. Not that we need to measure how much kindness and compassion we are engaging in--for the measuring seems to encourage unhealthy comparison--but something measurable is something graspable.

Thoughts?

Dear Summer, Where hast thou gone?

I am most assuredly in denial that it is already August.

I have indulged in the freedom and lazy air of summer to such an extent that I am not sure how one ever comes out of such a state. But I trust God will give me the drive, strength, and fortitude necessary when the time comes.

The sermon at Harvest this Sunday was focused around a call to gratitude. It was a passionate and well-driven message. I wonder if I could ever be so passionate in speech as to work up a sweat as that man did? Hm... probably not. =)

But in response to his call, I will list a few things for which I am thankful at present:

1. God's patience
2. Mint green tea
3. Long conversations with friends about life and faith (preferably over a yummy cup of coffee)
4. Family: both in the concrete and abstract sense
5. Knowing that I get to drive home this Friday
6. Productive therapy sessions
7. Skirts and comfortable heeled shoes
8. Thunderstorms
9. My comfy bed
10. Seeing what a mess I am and knowing that it is ok (i.e., by Grace, of course)

I could continue, but 10 seems like a nice number for such a list.

Oh! Also, a big thank-you to all 4 of you who responded to my request for comments. And for those of you who read without saying "hello"... shame on you. I'll give you a second chance:

Leave me a list of things for which you are thankful!