Have you ever stopped to think about the idea of praying for God to use you? This prayer is not an unusual one—in fact, Christians pray it all the time. The unusual thing is what we expect when we pray it (assuming that I’m not just speaking for myself on this one). Oftentimes we expect that God is going to provide us with this BIG thing. That he’s going to start working miracles through us, changing hearts and minds. However, this is rarely what happens. Usually what God brings us instead is a little opportunity to rejoice in some trying circumstance, or a little opportunity to love someone we know by representing Christ to him or her. When this happens, we get discouraged and upset that our “big thing” hasn’t come yet. However, the truth is that we are never promised a “big thing.” Instead, the Christian life (and the non-Christian life, for that matter) is made up of little things. Little opportunities to rely on God, little chances to display the character of Christ, little daily deaths as we humble ourselves when someone wrongs us or defames us or just pipes us off.
In John 12:24 Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” In this passage, Jesus was talking about himself, but it seems consistent with the whole of scripture that symbolically this is what must happen to us. We must “die to self.” Though this is a Christian cliché, it remains true. The question then becomes, What does it mean to die to self? The answer comes when we look at our view of God.
God is a personal God who is involved in all that we are part of daily. He is sovereign over all our circumstances and promises to “work all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to His purposes” (Romans 8:28). Therefore, we should face the daily responsibilities, the daily trials, the daily interactions as they are directly placed in our lives by God. We should invest, even if it’s just in a small way, in everyone we know. We should truly care about the individual—no matter who they are—and desire for them to see the glory of the grace of God.
The next time I sit down to pray the “God, use me” prayer, I hope that I can meditate on the truth of John 12:24 and think about the ways that I can die to myself and choose to be humble and accept my daily interactions, struggles, and responsibilities in light of the truth of God’s sovereignty.
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The reality of what this means in our life should humble us, because it takes all the glory away from ourselves. It's so frustrating because it's not our natural instinct; we don't want to do things that aren't going to help us out or build ourselves up, yet it is what we are called to do. If we are to truly die to self as it is described of Jesus in Philippians 2:4-8, it has to be practical for us. I really like what Schaeffer said: "This is where the Christian is to dwell if he is to know something of the power of the Spirit. Just as Christ was humbled in the external space-time world, in the hard stuff of history, not merely in someone's imagination, nor in some idealistic setting that makes His death a utopian statement withdrawn from life--so, too, a Christian should have a truly humble heart in the hard reality of the practical world. There is to be a practical reality of the seed falling into the earth to die... As soon as we seek the Me rather than follow the example of Christ, we are walking in the flesh rather than in the Spirit." It's scary looking at my interactions and seeing how they reflect the extent to which I want people to know God's glory.
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