Lord Jesus Christ, Teach Me to See Myself

Project: The Pilgrim Continues His Way
Series: Lord Jesus Christ, Teach Me to See
*Part 5: Teach Me to See Myself

Source: The Pilgrim Continues His Way, Author Unknown, translated by Olga Savin, Shambhala, Boulder, 2001.

Growing up in the church, I learned a little formula for JOY:

Jesus first.
Others second.
You last.

I understand what we were trying to teach. We were trying to guard against selfishness, pride, and inflated egos.

But there was another side to that teaching.

Some of us learned to put ourselves so far down the list that we began to believe there was something wrong with loving ourselves at all.

Not everyone experienced it that way.

I did.

I was fatter than many of the other boys. I wasn’t athletic. I was a nerd. I didn’t feel as though I fit the expected mold.

I heard plenty about sin.

What I didn’t hear nearly as clearly was Genesis 1:27:

I was created in the image of God.

I knew the creation stories in Genesis. I knew that God looked upon creation and called it good. Yet somehow I didn’t understand that this included something important about me.

I heard Jesus say:

“Love your neighbor as yourself.”

But somehow I heard:

Love your neighbor more than yourself.

Those are not the same thing.

Lord, Teach Me to See Myself

The Pilgrim and the Professor in The Pilgrim Continues His Way are learning about unceasing prayer. At times they become overwhelmed by everything they think they must accomplish. Yet as they continue listening, praying, and learning, they begin to see God’s grace at work.

That speaks to me.

My prayer began:

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

Then it became:

Lord Jesus Christ, teach me to see.

Then:

Lord Jesus Christ, teach me to see my neighbor.

And now:

Lord Jesus Christ, teach me to see myself as you see me.

That may be harder than it sounds.

I can look at myself through pride and see too much.

I can look at myself through shame and see too little.

I can look through old wounds and see the boy who didn’t fit.

I can look through sin and forget grace.

I can look at my accomplishments and forget how much I have received from others.

I can look at my failures and forget how far grace has already brought me.

So I need clearer vision.

Not an inflated picture of myself.

Not a diminished picture of myself.

I want to see myself through grace.

Created in the Image of God

Genesis tells me something about myself before it tells me about everything I have done wrong:

I bear the image of God.

That doesn’t mean everything about me is perfect.

It doesn’t mean there is nothing that needs changing.

I have sins.

I have wounds.

I have prejudices and biases.

I have pride.

I have fears.

There are things about myself I still cannot see clearly.

But none of those things changes the starting point:

God created me, and I bear God’s image.

Proverbs speaks of acquiring wisdom as loving oneself.

Jesus tells me to love my neighbor as myself.

First John tells me that love is inseparable from our relationship with God and with one another.

And Philippians calls me away from selfish ambition and conceit toward humility and concern for others.

Humility does not require self-hatred.

Humility teaches me to see truthfully.

I am not more valuable than my neighbor.

But neither am I less valuable than my neighbor.

We both stand within the love of God.

There Is Only One Room

My picture of grace as a house has helped me understand this.

Prevenient grace woos me from the street, up the steps, and onto the porch.

At the door I pray:

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

Mercy gets me through the door.

And then I enter the room.

There aren’t a series of rooms I must graduate through.

There is one room.

Life.

And everything that happens in that room is surrounded by sanctifying grace.

There can be an instant change when I cross the threshold.

There are also changes that take days, years, and sometimes a lifetime.

Grace keeps working.

Grace teaches.

Grace reveals.

Grace corrects.

Grace heals.

Grace challenges.

Grace comforts.

Grace helps me get up when I fall.

And grace keeps teaching me how to love.

Healing isn’t another room I enter later.

Healing is happening while I live in the room.

Sometimes healing helps me see.

Sometimes seeing reveals something else that needs healing.

Sometimes Sacred Writings show me something I couldn’t see before.

Sometimes Tradition gives me wisdom from those who walked before me.

Sometimes Experience exposes something about myself.

Sometimes Reason makes me stop and reconsider what I thought I knew.

They work together.

And through them, grace keeps clearing the glass.

Still Under Construction

That gives me peace.

I don’t have to pretend I’ve arrived.

I don’t have to become discouraged every time I discover something else that needs changing.

I don’t have to look backward and condemn myself because I couldn’t see forty years ago what I can see today.

I am growing in grace.

I am still under construction.

And, quite literally, much of that construction is taking place right here in my studio apartment.

This little room is part of the one great room called life.

Here I read.

Here I pray.

Here I remember.

Here I question.

Here I write.

Here I sometimes recognize something about myself that I couldn’t see before.

Here I encounter the Sacred Writings.

Here I wrestle with Tradition.

Here I reflect upon Experience.

Here I use Reason.

And here I keep praying:

Lord Jesus Christ, teach me to see myself as you see me.

God Is Love

First John gives me the foundation underneath all of this:

God is love.

That changes the way I understand sanctification.

Sanctification isn’t simply becoming better at religious behavior.

It is growing in grace.

It is growing toward union with God.

And if God is love, then true union with God must increasingly teach me to love as God loves.

Love God.

Love my neighbor.

Love myself.

Love the creation—the universe of which God has made me a part.

These relationships belong together.

Entire sanctification, then, is not about perfect performance.

It is about perfect love.

It is the maturing of our union with God until love increasingly orders all our relationships—God, others, self, and creation.

I am not there yet.

I still see through imperfect glass.

I still misunderstand.

I still discover prejudices and biases.

I still find wounds that need healing.

I still find places where pride needs to be humbled.

I still find places where shame needs to be replaced by grace.

But that doesn’t mean grace has failed.

It means I am still living in the room.

I am still growing.

I am still under construction.

Teach Me to See Myself

So today my unceasing prayer continues:

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

Lord Jesus Christ, teach me to see.

Lord Jesus Christ, teach me to see my neighbor.

Lord Jesus Christ, teach me to see myself as you see me.

Show me the image of God within me.

Show me my gifts without allowing me to become full of myself.

Show me my weaknesses without allowing me to despise myself.

Show me my sins without allowing me to believe that my sins are all that I am.

Show me my wounds and continue healing them.

Show me my prejudices and biases so grace can transform them.

Show me where pride needs humility.

Show me where shame needs mercy.

Teach me to love myself—not instead of loving you or my neighbor, but so that all these relationships can become what you created them to be.

And keep working on me.

I am still in the room.

I am still a pilgrim.

I am still under construction.

But I am not walking this journey trying to complete myself.

God is love.

And grace is still at work, teaching me to love.

Mercy got me through the door.
Sanctifying grace is teaching me how to live in the room.
And the room is life.