In my previous article How I lost myself and left Facebook, I described how my growing lust for affirmation drove me to rip myself away from public self-promotion in the effort to find focus outside of myself, to remove self-pity and replace it with service to others. I wrote that article two months ago and though it has been a great challenge to adjust to the dynamics of not being part of the online social network, it has also been very rewarding but certainly not how I envisioned it would be.
A new appetite.
I had assumed that by reducing my time spent talking about myself I would in effect produce humility. What I did not realise was that by removing that type of interaction with people I merely produced a hunger for affirmation that needed to be satisfied by something else.
Last Saturday I was sitting with a friend over breakfast and talking about my general health which had greatly improved in the last two months after making some major adjustments to my diet and exercise. I began to talk about my weight-loss, reduced body-fat, increased muscle mass, meal plans, workout routines, reps, sets, numbers, percentages and quoting various sources related to the carbohydrate hypothesis. Just as I began to talk about insulin, blood-sugar and triglycerides, I stopped mid-sentence and sat back in my chair completely confounded.
I looked at my friend and if I could not quite believe what I was saying, began to verbally realise that I had managed to satisfy my hunger for affirmation almost immediately after creating it. I had taken away the source and means of public-affirmation and replaced it with self-affirmation. I had removed the means of being affirmed by other people but instead of focusing outwardly in the worship of God and it’s overflow into the service of others; I had turned back inwards and had begun to focus so specifically on myself and my body that I now owned a pair of body-fat callipers, a two month long annotated graph of my physical changes and a 24Kg kettlebell called “Belle”.
Now my new found passion for improving my fitness, health and longevity is not a negative, in fact I could argue that it is dramatically less self-selfish, Godly and significantly good stewardship not only for myself but for my future family. But the issue is that I have become so self-obsessed that I am impotent to any purpose outside of my own health. I knew I was in trouble when for the first time in years I actually entertained the thought of living a long-life for the sake of it’s entertainment over and above being God glorifyingly useful even to the point of an early death.
I seem to have become more interested in a CrossFit centred life than in the obvious. Focusing on a WOD is beneficial, in fact I could say it would dramatically help my prayer life. The problem is though that I should be completely captivated in the pursuit of being Spiritually fit first, Apostolic rather than Paleolithic, feeding on Jesus and not feeding on myself. I have become a kind of spiritual cannibal, thinking that I can satisfy my appetite by eating my own flesh, and in the end all I have done is binge on my own ego and become so hyperglycemic that not even Wolf, Sisson or Taubes could help.
Food for thought.
When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, ‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.’ Then they said to him, ‘What must we do, to be doing the works of God?’ Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.’ So they said to him, ‘Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’‘ Jesus then said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ They said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’
Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.’
ESV. John 6:25-40
‘What must we do, to be doing the works of God?’ the disciples ask Jesus; ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent’, he replies succinctly. In true Jesus-style he leaves the listener/reader in an awkward position where the only place to look is at Jesus himself. He then uses the metaphor of hunger and thirst to drive in the point that we won’t ever be satisfied with anything else, and more so will never remain alive unless we come to Him.
Eating habits.
So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven.’ They said, ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.’ Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.
ESV. John 6:41-59
There is some terrifying encouragement here. That no one can come to Jesus unless the Father who sent Jesus draws them, and all that the Father gives Jesus will come to him, and whoever comes to Jesus, Jesus will never cast out. This is of course all wrapped up in the incredibly uncomfortable insane level of Jesus’ metaphor for himself, is this cannibalism Jesus is talking about?
Hard to swallow.
When many of his disciples heard it, they said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’ But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, ‘Do you take offence at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.’ (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, ‘This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.’
After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, ‘Do you want to go away as well?’ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.’ Jesus answered them, ‘Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.’ He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the Twelve, was going to betray him.
ESV. John 6:60-70
What does it mean if you or I hear Jesus’ question: ‘Do you want to go away as well?’ and everything inside us answers: ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.’? What does Jesus really mean when he says: ‘This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.’?
‘Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.’
Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’ And Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.’
ESV. Acts 2:22-24, 33-32, 36-39
Humble pie.
The most profound affirmation I could ever desire is that my heart is cut, and it groans out of a desire to be right with God. This article my not be the most eloquent piece of writing out there, but for me it is one small indication of the state of my heart right now, that for some magnificent reason it is hurting and that I want God more than anything else.
‘As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?’ When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, ‘Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.’
ESV. Acts 11:15-18
And so if it is the case that repentance itself is a gift of God, and that no one can come to Jesus unless the God draws Him, and that no one can receive eternal life unless they come to Jesus; who am I and who are you if we something inside us is breaking? Who are we and what does it mean if right now our hearts are cut and we desire to draw close to Jesus?
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.
ESV. 1 Peter 3:18
What depth of the hunger for affirmation can not be satisfied by the magnificent truth behind all of this? That if it is all true, then who we are is tied up intrinsically in what we have received, and if we have received repentance then we have received Jesus and his sacrifice of himself for us on the cross, and if we have received Jesus then we have received God, and if we have received God then it can only mean one thing, that God has drawn us to himself.
This is the highest form of affirmation one could ever desire to be fulfilled, that despite our failings or inflated egos, God wants us for himself and thus draws us to see his Son Jesus, that we are forgiven and given eternal life, but not only that we are given God himself and eternal life with him.