Killing My 'Self' with Paul and Lewis

You know that whole biblical idea of dying to self? That line Paul writes in Philippians 1:21, “to live is Christ, to die is gain”? I’ve always struggled with that. Is it OK to admit that I kind of like myself? Self-preservation is hard wired into me, and the idea of “killing” that self has always seemed confusing and unattainable to me. I’ve sort of figured out that it means not serving my selfishness, putting others ahead of myself, and following the Golden Rule, but those things are definitely not the “natural” me.

Who is my true self, anyway? Am I trying to find it or will it to die? What about all those people who are on a quest to “find themselves”? Is that a noble pursuit? And what are they going to do once they find themselves?  

C.S. Lewis has some revealing thoughts on such things. They come at the very end of Mere Christianity. I’ve written before about my pathetic attempt, at age 19, to read this book. I gave up about five pages in, convinced all the Lewis fanfare was a bit over the top and it just wasn’t for me. It was tempting to think, when I recently picked up the book again, that C.S. Lewis had really come a long way. “He’s so much more accessible now. His writing has really improved,” I thought for a second. But of course it’s not the writer who changed but the reader. Thank God that it’s me who has come a long way!

Hear what Lewis has to say about dying to self.  

The more we get what we now call ‘ourselves' out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become.

The more I resist Him and try to live on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity and upbringing and surroundings and natural desires. [I don’t know about you, but there’s a lot about my heredity and upbringing that I’m happy to “kill.”]

What I so proudly call ‘Myself’ becomes merely the meeting place for trains of events which I never started and which I cannot stop. What I call ‘My wishes’ become merely the desires thrown up by my physical organism or pumped into me by other men’s thoughts. . . . I am not, in my natural state, nearly so much of a person as I like to believe: most of what I call ‘me’ can be very easily explained. It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His Personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.

Until you have given up your self to Him you will not have a real self. Sameness is to be found most among the most 'natural' men, not among those who surrender to Christ. How monotonously alike are all the great tyrants and conquerers; how gloriously different are the saints. [I like that a lot.]

Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in. 

That last part is hard to accept. Most people won’t buy it. We kinda like ourselves. But the longer we spend really getting to know ourselves, the deeper we understand who we are, the more honest we have to be about what’s inside. There’s some good, for sure, but there’s also loneliness, hatred, despair, and decay. That’s what I am happy, eager, grateful, to kill. And when I do, I am filled with the wholeness—the love, hope, and fullness of joy—of Christ. To live is Christ, to die is gain. Yeah, Paul, I get it.