Our reactions to the journeys of others shine a light on monsters we've yet to face.
Years ago, right after I had heard the audible voice of God for the first time, I embarked on a journey toward Absolute Surrender. The first step was to "trade" God the things He asked of me: job, boyfriend, habits, etc. I could visualize the trade happening, much like Hannah Hurnand's Hinds Feet On High Places—He'd request it, I'd take a day or two or sometimes just a couple of hours to react with a "yes," and then it was gone. Usually ripped out by the proverbial root.
However, it was slooow going. Like Eustace in the dragon's skin*, I began to want the process to move faster. I wanted God to remove it in one fell swoop.
I guess when God thought I was good and ready for the more quick and painful removal, He led me to a slim little stick-of-dynamite book called Absolute Surrender by Andrew Murray. It was wedged between a shelf full of church-related books in my Grandmother's guest room. (If you haven't read that book by Andrew Murray, let me know so I can purchase it for you and send it to you. It is the most influential book in my life, second only to the Bible.)
I prayed the prayer of surrender in it and have never looked back.
To get me ready to react to His request for complete capitulation, He trained my obedient reactions to His requests. At first, things took a few days and later, perhaps hours. Then came the final training request:
As I was praying and journaling, God overtook me in a vision. That is the only way I know how to describe it since I wasn't really able to "shake" myself out of it. I saw what I knew to be the inside of my self. I was not alone. I was accompanied by the Holy Spirit, dressed in overalls, carrying a powerful flashlight. He guided me to a cistern—a deep pit inside of me. I recall the feeling of its stone border on my palms since it was completely flat to the ground (no walls like a water well). Both kneeling, He shined the light as we leaned over—and back, quickly. In the pit, I saw a piranha-like worm-looking monster that lashed out and tore off a piece of ME and DEVOURED it.
Trust me, it was worse than disgusting. It was devastating.
My immediate reaction, as I pushed back was to say "Kill it!" This is the correct reaction to any revelation of self and pride alive in us. He had trained my responses well.
The Holy Spirit called it "Voraciously Destructive" and showed me quickly, how, in my growing up years, this thing had lashed out and devoured others. Through a fruit of Holy Spirit (self-control), it was contained and didn't harm others. Now, it only ate me.
I completely understood what He meant, considering I had a front-row seat to my own thought-life toward my failures.
I am so very grateful that He did not leave it there. We no longer did a trade. I simply watched Him drive a spear through it and saw it expire completely. Dead. Destroyed. Unresurrectable. I have not had an appetite for destruction since nor have my failures ever caused my thought-life to be negative again. (Though I still had a ways to go on cleaning up my thought-life from things other than failures. More on that another time.)
The next day I excitedly shared the vision with my Grandmother right after she walked through the front door. She was visibly shaken by it, saying, "I need to go home to see what God wants to deal with in my heart!" This saint who heard from God every day and hadn't likely sinned in years, immediately left to go home and let God search her heart.
Compare and contrast that to when I shared this vulnerable and intimate story with a group of singles, over which I was a leader. When I finished, the pride in that room tangibly and visibly rose. The response from most of them was, "Well, I don't have such a thing inside me! You really need to work on yourself, I guess."
When someone shares about the monsters they've faced, do you react with defensive pride? Or, like my Grandmother, do you let their journeys search your own heart?
May Grace train us to react rightly.
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* Eustace from the Chronicles of Narnia series becomes a dragon and it is only Aslan who rescues him by removing the dragon skin. Eustace's previous attempts to do so are slow going and ineffectual.