Right now...I am in a process where God is saying to me "Nope. You are still depending on yourself. I want less of you." So I break myself down, thinking SURELY, God, this is enough to suffice. How will I survive against Midian without counting on myself! And then God says "Nope. Still too much." And as I'm sitting here...I finally GET IT. The more of ME that is involved, the more I think to myself "Look what I have brought myself through." And I can just imagine God thinking to himself "Ryan, you are a MORON. You don't get it. This isn't about YOU. It's about ME. When will you see that I will break you down until you realize that you are NOTHING without me. I will split the oceans to protect you, but until you win the battle as a BROKEN man, you won't learn that I suffice. I am all you need. Without me, you are nothing. You are made in MY image, not your own. Without me, you lose every time."
I get it. The breaking me down is building me up. The less of me there is to fight with, the MORE of me that will be left standing. God goes ahead, behind, and to the sides. When I empty myself, I am filled with Him. As I look in the mirror, I no longer see me. I see Him. He makes me...me. I am learning that if I still think I won on my own, that it was ME that got me through it, than I haven't won at all. Until I see that without God, the battle was lost; until I see that he fought for me, than there is too much of me in the equation still.
Me - Me = God.
