{"id":53,"date":"2016-01-20T03:24:52","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T08:24:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.danihenderson.com\/?p=53"},"modified":"2016-01-20T03:24:52","modified_gmt":"2016-01-20T08:24:52","slug":"not-loving-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danihenderson.com\/?p=53","title":{"rendered":"Not Loving It"},"content":{"rendered":"

John 12:<\/em><\/p>\n

23\u00a0<\/span>Jesus replied, <\/span>\u201cNow the time has come for the Son of Man<\/span> to enter into his glory.<\/span><\/span> <\/span>24\u00a0<\/span>I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels\u2014a plentiful harvest of new lives.<\/span><\/span> <\/span>25\u00a0<\/span>Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity.<\/span><\/span> <\/span>26\u00a0<\/span>Anyone who wants to serve me must follow me, because my servants must be where I am. And the Father will honor anyone who serves me.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

After a particularly bad day, you might expect that I would come\u00a0back to this verse thinking that at least I have the “not loving my life” part down. When my mind travels down the well-worn paths that all seem to lead to the same dark place, when it seems like I will never stop hurting the ones I love, when it seems like every apology is stale and insincere and every act of love is rote, those are the times I think the world would be better off without me. Stuck in those ruts, I obsess over the hurt I cause and the imagined judgments of others, and ultimately, I’m really doing the opposite of caring nothing for my life.<\/p>\n

Whether I obsess over how great life is or over how great I think it should be (and isn’t), the fact remains that I’m still\u00a0obsessing.<\/em> And more to the point, in those moments I’m really putting my hope in this world or some alternate version of it where I imagine I would be content. It all adds up to a lot of chasing and pining after some idealized picture of life in this world, and not a lot of following after Jesus.<\/p>\n

I had an epiphany the other day when I realized that the more I\u00a0try to hold on to this world, the more I end up withdrawing from it and from my mission as the image of Christ. The more I try to find the place\u00a0where everyone likes me and where I belong, the more I find myself walled off.<\/p>\n

Oh, if only I could just let go! I pray, God, let me invest in You at\u00a0the\u00a0expense of everything else, even life itself. Let me decrease, that You would increase in my thoughts and heart. I want to be rid of this constant\u00a0self-consciousness<\/em>, \u00a0because it is the antithesis of God-consciousness. I pray for a vision of life where I truly care nothing for myself and what others think of\u00a0me<\/em>, but see only Jesus and His work, His glory, and His boundless love for others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John 12: 23\u00a0Jesus replied, \u201cNow the time has come for the Son of Man to enter into his glory. 24\u00a0I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels\u2014a plentiful harvest of new lives. 25\u00a0Those who love … Continue reading Not Loving It<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p15yk6-R","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danihenderson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danihenderson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danihenderson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danihenderson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danihenderson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.danihenderson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60,"href":"https:\/\/www.danihenderson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions\/60"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danihenderson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danihenderson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danihenderson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}