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CHAPTER 1

Sick of Me

I'm sick of me."

I went to lunch with a girlfriend not long ago, and that's what I said. And I meant it. I'm so, so tired of thinking about me. I'd like to tell you that I'm not that self-absorbed, but the truth is, I am. And I'm sick of it.

A lot of it is superficial and temporal. What do people think of me? Why does she have friends and invitations I don't? Why can't I lose the squishiness that makes my favorite jeans feel like they are literally squeezing the life right out of me? What's so wrong with me that other women can create change or peace or joy or the perfect Pinterest-worthy life, but I can't? All of that surface stuff is there.

But honestly, more than some of my "me" preoccupation is spiritual. I'm tired of thinking about "my purpose." I'm worn out trying to live like "who I am in Christ." I'm exhausted by the endless pursuit to be "the best version of me," but stuck with the very ordinary, still struggling version of me. And when I double down my efforts and strive to be better than I am, live my best life and change, I'm met with books and sermons that deal with more "me-ness."

I am a victorious, daughter of the most High God, called to let go of her crippling anxiety and perfectionism. A woman who ought to live loved and accepted and whole.

These are good (some of them brilliant) lessons that are beneficial. They just aren't helping me. What is wrong with me? And there it is again. Me. Her. Self. And that's part of my problem, even my good, Bible-study girl intentions and efforts are kind of all about me. What did I get out of it? What is my takeaway? What does this passage say about me?

What I've been doing isn't working. I want to grow spiritually; in fact, I think I'm desperate to. I buy the books, do the Bible studies, listen to all the podcasts, and strive for biblical community; but it's just not making a difference. I'm trying. I really, really am.

And I bet you are too. I've met you. I've talked with you. I suspect your reading list looks like mine. I imagine you've tried all the same stuff I have. I imagine we read similar devotions, use some of the same apps, pin the same images, and share the same quotes. I suspect our friendships are made of similar stuff.

Now maybe you aren't sick of you, or perhaps you wouldn't put it that way. Maybe you're just discouraged. Or, do you wonder why your life doesn't feel easy and light? Perhaps you've sensed, like me that despite all your spiritual striving, something feels off in a way you can't quite describe. I get it. I really do. And I get the frustration. The inability to put into words what's wrong.

(Something isn't right, but I'm not sure what.)

If I had to sum it up, I'd say this. For all our best efforts, we don't look dramatically more like Jesus today than we did yesterday. We aren't growing more spiritually mature. We may know a bit more, but our lives don't bear the difference. I have countless lists and tips for better marriages, friendships, and finances. But do I really, truly look more like Jesus?

No.

That day at lunch my friend reached across the table and said, "Then stop telling me about you. Tell me about Jesus."

Her words gutted me in the best possible way. Do you know that feeling? The sucker punch that takes your breath away, and kind of makes you want to puke? I usually get it when I'm listening to a sermon that I'm sure is for "everybody else" and then my pastor says something that is clearly — too clearly — meant for me. That's what her words felt like. I thought we were just having a nice, honest conversation, and she had to go and say something like that. And yet that one comment struck me in a way that awakened something soulful and sincere in me.

She was right, and it hurt. But she wasn't finished.

"Whit, you are the most sincere, real person I know. You are self-aware and transparent, maybe to a fault. Your problem isn't that you don't know or own what's broken about you. The problem is you don't seem to really want to do anything about it. It's like you think 'owning' it is enough."

And there it was.

Now if you are anything like me, the concept of "brokenness" may feel kind of played out. A cliché word Christian girls share like Starbucks selfies. We talk about it a lot in church circles. We toss it around with other Christiany buzzwords like authenticity, transparency, raw, and real. These virtues are added to ideals like "community" and "fellowship" to form a kind of modern petri dish for spiritual maturity.

If you get all of these elements together in one person or place, you've got yourself a greenhouse for spiritual growth. But what if, what if, talking about it isn't the same thing as actually doing it? And what if posting or sharing it doesn't actually change us? What if our greenhouses are just filled with gas?

My crazy-wise friend had summed me up just right. I was content to be broken, but not so concerned with being better. I can do transparent. Transformation? Not so much. My mind was spinning. I was thinking of a hundred ways to justify myself, offer up an excuse, or grab a Scripture that I could slap on this situation (likely out of context, because that usually happens when we try to use Scripture to suit us) that would make me sound spiritual. But when I looked at her face, I sensed that this conversation didn't need more conversation. I didn't need to talk my way out of this one. I needed to sit with that truth, and, to the best of my ability, get out of my own way and let truth work me over.

The result is what you hold in your hands.

Now to be completely transparent, because how could I not be: we can't totally diagnose what's wrong without considering ourselves just a little bit. A woman can't totally ignore her own habits, motivations, desires, or behaviors if she truly desires to change those things. But I hope you'll navigate this dangerous path with me. There are deadly traps ahead. Yes, transparency and brokenness are necessary for the believer. We do need to be honest with ourselves about our sin. But we can't, we must not, get stuck there. It's not that transparency is bad. It's that we often get stuck there and don't move forward to the whole point of confessing our brokenness in the first place — change. It sounds wild, but transparency really can be the trap that keeps us from getting to the gospel-centered goal of transformation.

We may think it starts with us, but, praise His Matchless Name, it was never meant to end with us.

What We Won't Admit You know when you buy or download a movie, there is often a feature where you can watch the film and hear the director's commentary over the movie dialogue? Well, my life has one of those. And if you could hear the director's cut swirling in my mind, you'd realize it is composed mostly of Friends lines and random song lyrics.

Today's accompaniment is the line from The Sound of Music, "Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start." I was humming it as I was wrestling with my friend's comment. The next line of the song is, "When you read you begin with ABC. When you sing you begin with Do, Re, Mi." (There it is again. Me. Or in this case "mi.")

I think we should start at the very beginning. So I started asking myself, "Why am I sick of me?"

The answer that kept coming to me was, "I'm sick of me because it's just not working."

But what's not working in my spiritual life? I needed to get specific. Here's the thing: we can't address what we won't admit. And we only make general progress when we pursue general solutions to fix general problems. Let me give you an example. I'm a little squishier than I'd like to be. So every year I make a New Year's resolution to lose weight. But that's a generic solution to a generic problem. Really, what does "squishier" even mean? This year I took the time to identify that the specific thing that was killing me (and my waistline) was my commitment to sweet things and regular soda. So I seriously cut back on them. I also resolved to run a 5K by March. For the first time in my life, I'm actually making progress, real progress, toward getting healthy. Specific problem. Specific solution. Specific progress in one area.

This is not new thinking. Steven Covey in his book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People famously identified healthy goals as those that are S.M.A.R.T. According to Covey, successful goal achievement starts with goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound, hence the acronym SMART. This advice isn't just good for the professional business person; it's good advice for the committed Christian, too. And for far too long, I've been a fairly half-hearted Christian.

So what isn't working? What is my problem? Honestly, it's that I don't feel like I'm making progress. So then I had to ask, "Progress toward what?" (Listen, I feel like I should beg you to hang with me. This seems kind of tedious, right? But I promise this is the process of getting where we really want to go. And for far too long I suspect we have rushed past this part — the part where we truly diagnose what's dysfunctional in our spiritual lives. So don't bail on me. We're headed somewhere!) When I think about my spiritual life, what is the endgame? The same question goes to you: What do you want out of your spiritual life? Have you ever asked yourself that question? Why are we even doing this?

Stop and think about that. It's cool. I'll wait. (Need some prompts? I usually do ...)

• Why do you study God's Word?

• Why do you drag yourself (and perhaps your household) out of bed and out the door to church?

• Why do you want friendships or a community that affirm and build your faith?

• If heaven is our sure and secure destination, why stress about what our life looks like here?

These are fair, and I'd argue important, questions for each of us to answer honestly and then rightly. For me, the honest answer isn't necessarily the right answer. And I think that's at least part of my problem.

You see, I can answer these questions in a good, church-girl, Sunday school way. You probably can too. I know what sounds right. But while I know the right answer, it's not the honest answer.

The honest answer is that I've spent most of my Christian life doing the right things so that other people will think the right thing about me. If I do this, you'll think that. If I show up at church and raise my hands at the right time, open my Bible to the right page (without too much lag time between the searching and the finding), if I serve and smile and have good Christian friends, you'll think I'm a good Christian.

While it's hardly comforting to be in the company of the Pharisees, I see myself in lots of the places they pop up in Scripture. Same song. Different verse. Same sin. Different generation.

When I read the New Testament, I can shake my head in disbelief and judgment at the Pharisees' arrogance. Their hubris never ceases to amaze. But those questions we answered earlier, the realization that I do the right things for all the wrong reasons, that I care too much what others think about my spiritual maturity. Hello, my name is "Pharisee."

Countless New Testament passages prove how Jesus frustrated the Pharisees and teachers of the law. Rarely did they come to Jesus to clarify truth or discern wisdom. Their primary goals were to maintain their control and image, limit Jesus' influence, and maintain the status quo.

For years the Jewish religious leaders had curated a system of rituals that let them appear holy without being holy. It's much easier to act holy than to be holy.

The Pharisees had stepped outside of their authority. God alone defines what is holy; He gave the Law to Moses. Its purpose wasn't to be a weapon against God's people, but an invitation to enter into relationship with Him. Over time the Law revealed that none of us can attain inward purity when sin is not addressed.

Jesus came to address this sin issue — for the Pharisees, for you, and for me. Were the Pharisees hands unclean? Sure. But no amount of washing before a meal, in between each course, and at bedtime would make them clean enough to stand before a holy God.

That's what Jesus was saying in Matthew 15:8–9: "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules."

Because they missed the point of the law, they wrongly concluded that if they did enough good they could earn God's kindness. Jesus was clarifying that pleasing God isn't about ritual or performance; pleasing God is about obedience motivated by love and faith. He desires deep devotion, not shallow spirituality.

Now the Pharisees were deeply devoted, but their devotion was rooted in looking like they were without sin or guilt. Public opinion and control were their gods. They were devoted to the appearance of righteousness — to their reputation. I can be guilty of the same. How about you?

Like me, do you sometimes care if people see you doing spiritual things? Do we confess and turn from sins that people can see, all the while ignoring attitudes or actions that are still offensive to God but more easily hidden? Do we say the right thing with our lips while living the wrong things with our lives behind closed doors?

This may not be true of you, but it is all too true for me.

And that is kind of where it went off the rails, y'all. The Christian life is never meant to make people think more or better of me. The goal is for me to look more like Christ, and, should people happen to notice me in the process, for them to think more of Jesus. Can my life display the goodness, majesty, grace, righteousness, supremacy, and sweetness of Jesus? Sure. But it should all rest on and resolve with Jesus. Not me.

But that's not on many T-shirts or bookshelves. Instead, we are encouraged to "live your best life" or "you do you." In my best version of me, I decide what life ought to look like. But actually, what frames my best hopes and dreams for my life are my friends' opinions and expectations, television, culture, and of course social media. What I want, what I'm striving for, can be kind of hard to explain or define. Is that true for you?

I've found I can usually pinpoint my unmet expectations by looking at my very real frustrations. Life's disappointments usually expose us to our heart's expectations. It's hard to be disappointed by something we weren't hoping for. Expectations aren't bad. Hopes don't have to go unrealized. Expectation and hope can be the best kind of motivators. But when our expectations aren't anchored in the eternal or informed by Scripture, we end up running after things that are fleeting and ever-changing. Self-infused desires and the pursuit of the approval of others is like chasing the wind, ever-changing, difficult to pin down, and impossible to catch.

Our best lives can't be defined by social media or the culture at large. Our best life can't even be completely based on what we want or think we need. Friend, those pursuits are called group therapy or self-help. What we are called to is sanctification.

Sanctification is the progressive work of becoming more like Christ. It addresses the internal quality of our spiritual maturity and is evidenced in external actions. Sanctification then is only applicable for believers.

If we want to define it, we could say that sanctification is both a divine process and a human pursuit. It is something that the Holy Spirit does in and through us to make us become more like Christ — that's God's process in us. But at the same time, we also cooperate with His promptings to become more like Christ through obedience — that's our pursuit. This is what Paul is describing in 2 Corinthians 3:18 when he says we "are being transformed into [Christ's] image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."

I'm a daddy's girl through and through. My dad is the most gentle, thoughtful, loving man. His tenderness of heart and strength of character are unquestionable. He helped me fall in love with Jesus with my heart and mind and modeled what it means to love God and others every day of my life. My life's ambition is to be more like him.

Now I'm fully aware that many (maybe most) people didn't have the joy of a dad like mine. If that's true for you, friend, I'm so, so sorry. Really. That's not fair, and you deserved better. But no matter your experience with your earthly father, our heavenly Father is infinitely more faithful, dependable, kind, loving, tender, gracious, and trustworthy. All of His children should say every day, "I want to be more like my Dad." And that is sanctification. Daily becoming more like Him. We want to be more like our Abba, our heavenly Father. (Abba is the Aramaic term of affection that means "Dad".)

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Excerpted from "Sick of Me"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Whitney Capps.
Excerpted by permission of B&H Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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