aware

It's sad because you can't ever stop yourself from being self-aware. I wonder what the world would be like if we could be.

On Easter, Pastor Andrew made a comment about sacrificial love:
(I hope it was Easter and not Good Friday. I have such a bad memory..)

"The moment you realize your love is sacrificial, it is no longer sacrificial."

So true. When you know you're making a sacrifice, you weren't making a sacrifice; you were just trying to impress another person, feel better about yourself, whatever. If it were natural, then sacrifice wouldn't seem out of the ordinary, at least not enough for you to be aware about it.

Understanding this is like the secret to bitterness and all the stuff that plagues churchgoers. We're just so aware of the time we spend in church, we're so aware of the things we do to supposedly serve, we're aware of the obligations we keep, we're aware of every devotional time we spend with God.. We don't just do it, we count it. And we expect something in return.

I spend a lot of my time counting my returns. And when they don't amount to much, I get bitter.

I really discovered what Jesus is about. Freedom to know that whatever I'm doing, it's all the same, there's no more or less benefit to doing one thing or another - God puts me in each place for a reason, and He wants me to enjoy the place I'm in. No matter how hard it might be at times, God will care for me.

This "awareness" thing is applicable to tons of other things.. the first thing that pops into my mind:

The moment you realize you are being humble, you are no longer humble.

That one sucks. A lot. (Especially when you're trying your best to be humble.)

But anyway, another thought that comes into my mind is how hard it is for us to commit to change. We don't ever want to change the way we are, and through having a couple different conversations with people, I've found that:

1) People hate questions they can't answer.
2) People hate uncertainty.
3) People hate change.

There's a lot of overlap in those three things. But I know this because we honestly don't want to face the truth.

For many, the most annoying thing about Jesus is that He tells us to drop everything and follow Him. And that's not for everyone, certainly not for the rich young man. But for me, the irony seems to be in the fact that we're so aware of the fact that Jesus is asking us to give up these things. I mean, honestly, it's strange that we are so preoccupied with what we have to give up instead of seeing how much Jesus is offering us.

And maybe if we just stopped being aware of the fact that we were giving things up, and we were just aware of the fact that God loves us and Jesus saves us and that is absolutely all we ever needed, then truly, everything else would be no sacrifice.

P.S. So what can I do about this self-awareness?

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. That's what's awesome about it. Truly, let go, let God.