Romeo and Juliet’s love story is a tragedy because of a misunderstanding.
Romeo took the fact that Juliet’s eyes were closed—oh, and that she was in a tomb—to mean that she was dead rather than asleep. Upon discovering Juliet with closed eyes, Romeo drinks poison to join her in death. Then, when sleeping Juliet wakes up to find her beloved dead, she takes her own life too.
The tragic part of this story is the misunderstanding. God’s Big Story has a plot, but sometimes we misunderstand His words, specifically when He calls us to deny ourselves.
The plot that we read
Toward the end of Jesus’ life, He explains to His apostles what will happen next. Jesus says these words that jarred me for years:
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” – Matthew 16:24
In Sunday School, no one explained what this meant, so I filled in my own blanks. I misunderstood what denying myself meant in a tragic way.
I understood “denying myself” to mean two different things:
1. Giving up the essence of who I am.
As I kid, I thought this meant giving up my personality, emotions, talents, dreams, and passions. Whatever made me a unique individual got tossed.
As an adult, this manifested itself in denying my needs. I worked at our church despite my fatigue, God’s cue for me to rest. I told myself there was a dying world out there, so I should just suck it up and get to it. Side note: children’s ministry is hard!
The tragedy is that I dismissed God’s cues to me—the emotions I felt, the needs I neglected, the dreams I ignored—and put on a mask of fake-fine.
2. Taking on terrible, uninspiring tasks.
As a kid, I thought this meant that I would deny using my skills and talents. I thought I was destined to a life of drudgery and jobs I was inept at doing.
As an adult, I served in areas where I wasn’t gifted and felt the awkwardness of being out of place. I gave and helped out of guilt because I assumed “denial of self” was code for “hard stuff you don’t want to do.”
The tragedy is that I took roles that were meant for someone else and, in so doing, wasn’t available for the good work He had in mind for me.
Try-hard girls, it’s time to break free from our tragic misunderstanding so we can move into the beauty He intended.
Toward the end of His life, Jesus told those gathered to “deny themselves” so they could see things from God’s perspective. He wanted them to deny their sinful nature and become who He created them to be.
Deny
God never wants us to lose our “very self” (Luke 9:23–25), but He does want us to deny, disown, and abstain from our sinful nature. He wants us to forget our own concerns and adopt the Father’s concerns instead (Matthew 16:23).
Become
God always wants us to be who He created us to be. We are image-bearers made in the presence of Christ, and we are called to shine our light in a way only we can.
Only you have your exact circle of influence.
Only you have the hopes and dreams and passions that fit perfectly with a hurting world that longs for what you have to offer.
Only you can tell your unique testimony to the gospel of grace and the Savior of all the people.
Adam S. McHugh says this in The Listening Life
, (The FCC requires that I tell you that I’m an Amazon Affiliate, which means I earn a bit of commission on each sale. But don’t worry there’s no added cost to you!) “While we aim to glorify God in all we do, the way of following Jesus is not self-abdication. Yes, we set aside what is passing away—the old ways, the old life, the old self—and then we become fully alive by taking on our new creation life, our truest and deepest self.”
God put you in this time in history to be who you are, to do what He has invited you to do, so you can glorify Him in a way that only you can.
Try-hard girls, let’s not live out our own version of Romeo and Juliet because of a misunderstanding of God’s word. Instead, let’s remember that we’re to deny our sinful nature, not our personality, needs, or gifts.
Jesus invites us to become who we most fully are. That’s no tragedy. That’s one heck of a love story.
It’s amazing how our own view of the truth often misaligns to God’s, isn’t it? I’m guilty as well, being more of a “task-taker” versus leaning a listening ear to God and nurturing a heart that rests until the task is right.
Kristi- it’s so much easier to do the task than it is to listen! Thank you for reading. -jill
Thanks for this post. I love these words and the encouragement they give to those of us who sometimes have a hard time saying no to “good” things that are not necessarily “God” things for us. Thanks for sharing.
Eva – isn’t it so hard to say “no” to the good?!?! You hit the nail on the head friend. -jill