Sanctification?

so my life is, as it is, busy beyond belief but not beyond bearing. I am joyful in all that I have, but I have a lot going on. I used to read the "saints" and think about their accounts . . . and over and over I couldn't understand this concept of self-hatred and punishing the body. It just seemed rediculous to me. I'm not claiming to fully understand now, or maybe what I think I understand now really isn't understanding but the product of an over-worked brain, but it feels right in my spirit.

As I read the Bible I realize that at some point along the way I decided to do this whole Christian thing for real. Not that I was ever not a Christian, but I just didn't see why I had to be fully commited to this God. However, as life hurtles on and I get bumped and bruised along the way, I realize more and more my need for God. I need him because I really can't do this on my own. It is simply too much for me to bear. It strikes me as odd though because, in reality, I know that I am of a very successful class and basically on track for a nice little educational career. There is no reason that my life just shouldn't work out perfectly. I have it all going for me. I have my education, my credentials, my recommendations, and my sparkling personality to carry it all off. But I know that this is not enough and I am sure that where I see my life going is not where it will go at all because life just does not work that easily. Whenever I think that I know/control everything that is going on, that is the instant that I am farthest from reality. However, I am, in the american sense of the word, successful and set up to continue succeeding. If I, a successful person, know that I have too much to bear and thus need God, how to unsuccessful people bear it without God? This is far from my comprehension.

This past Lenten season I have been reading the Bible daily and it is strange to see how merely doing this changes my life and awareness so completely. Instead of seeing my successful american self, I am aware of my self that is not successful. As I have examined my heart more and more, I know more and more that there are several parts of me. There is the good self (far too small and weak) and the bad self. This bad self is the root of all of my problems. It is the contentious, prideful, mocking, arrogant, lieing, shameing, and shameful part of me that hurts others and myself in so many small ways. it is the part of me that doesn't care what other people think, the part that goes on in pride and doesn't read the directions, the part that thinks that being successful makes me worth more than those with less financially measurable success.

As I look more and more at God I realize more and more how extremely unattractive this sinning side of myself is. In the past I used to think that for some reason it was ok for me to have this or that little sin and that having this little sin wouldn't really create that much havoc. Such a small pleasure, such a simple untruthfulness couldn't possibly be that bad, right? But as I grow more in understanding of God I grow more in understanding of what these wheedling parts of myself truly are. They are disgusting. I no longer try to stop sinning out of a sense of obligation (God, you should be so proud of me because I'm giving up this huge thing for you. Are you happy yet?!) But I try and stop sinning out of pure hatred and disgust for what these sins truly are. Eww. I don't want to have that attached to me!

In the process of attempting to separate myself from my sin, and truly turn it over to God, repent, get forgiveness, and follow him in all things, I am loosing parts of me that I thought were myself. Things that I defined as myself, things that I was even proud of, I am realizing how pathetically stupid they were and that they have nothing to do with who I really am. As all Americans, I am forever wondering who I am. In stripping away all of what should not be I am discovering more of what I am and what I can be. In denying the evil, I am opening up to something better and wholer.

This is how I am beginning to understand some of what the saints of old talked about in their hatred of the self. I truly do hate parts of myself. Not in the unhealthy, depressed, aneorxic way that I used to tend to, but in a serious examination of what I am made up of and what I ought to be. When I put what I am against what I ought to be and see the differences - the twistedness of my spirit where it ought to be straight - I hate. I hate those things because they are what take me away from the better person that I could be. And in this hatred of myself I am growing to respect myself. I do not think that I am great in that prideful sense that I used to, but I respect myself the way that I respect others, and nature - I, along with all the rest, am a creation of God, something that he declared good. This makes me no better and no worse than anyone else. Everyone deserves the same respect and consideration that I do. The parts of me that are turned to him and his ways are still good and the parts that aren't can be good when they have been properly repaired. In giving up my old self, I have a new, better one. The one that I should have had all along. One that can apologize and truly mean it, one that really does care about other people, and one that is beginning to be more grateful to God because of the things that he has placed in and before me.

Stripping off the old self really hurts. The Christian life is full of grieving and goodbyes. It is a painful way to go. But what comes out of it is so valuable. If I cry now, I am glad because I know that it will be turned to joy in the future.