I grew up singing a song I never really liked and I now hate at youth group events all over the Southeast. "You must increase I must decrease..." That's from the chorus and the only line I can actually remember. It is nearly universally acknowledged that suicide is not "the answer", that it's not our place to take our own lives. Yet in the Christian culture suicide is unabashedly promoted. Not physically, but spiritually or soulfully if you will. We tout verses, "If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. The old has gone. The new has come", "It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me." Jesus made us with beating hearts that desire, are passionate about, talented at, angry about, broken-hearted about specific things. If we believe that Jesus is trying to make us less ourselves then why did he make us all different? We talk about "Who I am in Christ" but then we say things like "I just need to die to myself. Put away my flesh. Be more like Jesus." As if being more like Jesus means being less ourselves. I believe being more like Jesus means being more ourselves. Jesus is not trying to make an army of people who have quarantined the sinful parts of themselves and made the rest of themselves to match a general, broad idea of who Jesus is. How do I know who Jesus is apart from my heart? My heart that is different from any other heart. It is not easy to know yourself. It's painful, exciting, full, and it always costs to realize your dreams and go after them. But is that not where Jesus is? Jesus is in the pursuit of hearts. That is what he does, how can we join him without pursuing our own heart? When I tried "to decrease", "to die to myself" I felt like I was taking the life out of my soul, but I just thought that's what Jesus wanted so I tried to endure the pain with gritted teeth, a hurting heart, and a confused mind. Personality is one of the most intricate things in creation. God knew what he was doing when he made you, you. I need more of Jesus. I am plagued by sin. I am overwhelmed by living here. I don't know what's best for me or the people around me. But these truths don't require that I kill myself and just let Jesus live. I believe that if anyone is in Christ he is new creation. That the old has gone and the new has come. But who decided that means I must decrease? The old patterns, the old sin, the old ways of coping go and Jesus brings us the new ways. "You were once dead in your sins, but now you are alive in Christ." Jesus came to bring us "life, and life to the full." He came to make us alive. To make us who we were meant to be, our redeemed selves, not a generic "holy person" without individual passions and desires. God is telling the world something about himself through you, something no one else can tell. This requires we be more ourselves, not less. But here's the twist: we cannot make ourselves more ourselves. Jesus is the one who gives us to ourselves. Who opens our eyes, and shows us how to move toward who we were meant to be. As Tyler from Vintage 21 said once, "The beginning of the story is God made you, and it was very good." Now we are on a journey back to Very Good not to Less. I hope I die to myself more every day, I just don't think it requires making myself less. I think it means giving space to Jesus to do whatever He wants, and he never seeks to diminish me. He is the One who knows the difference between the sin and the sinner. He tears down the former and builds up the ladder. We fell from grace, chose evil, and yet He has come to make us as we "should have been." To make me Eve, as "[s]he should have been."
" 'Yes, I am white now,' said Gandalf. 'Indeed I am Saruman, one might almost say, Saruman as he should have been.' "
-The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, J. R. R. Tolkien
