I have been doing counseling since I was in seminary back in 2006 when I was dealing with high levels of anxiety and depression. For the first eight years of counseling the common theme was me shaming myself at how bad I was, the failures I had made that month and constantly talking about my struggles with codependency.
A joke that I would always make with my friend and counselor, David was talking about the “old dog”. The old dog for me was the old man, the flesh, the false self or all of the junk in me that I despised. It was the thing in me that I hated the most that would typically always destroy me. And I would dwell on it all the time.
So much of my journey has been focused on how bad I was as a result of the fall of humanity and thus shaming myself for how much of a failure I was. This manifested itself in loving others poorly and always thinking I needed to prove something in my service efforts or feel a sense of safety and security from others. My interactions with my friends on the margins was driven out of a lack in me and thus led to a lot of burn out. It was not motived by being the beloved of God.
I was so consumed with Romans 7 and Paul’s struggle with the flesh that I forget that he opens the next chapter with, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus." I am the kind of person that you don’t need to correct or chastise, because I am typically in the corner condemning myself in my head. When I do receive criticism it normally crushes me because I have always been my own worst critic.
There’s a stream in Christianity that glories in the fall and wants to bash us all the time by focusing on the fact that we are sinners and that no good thing dwells in us. A pastor one time called this “YS” theology, meaning “You suck.” Do we have sin that so easily besets us that needs to be named and confessed? Of course. It is sin that Christ came to set us free from.
A few years ago a friend made a comment during a church service that God was helping her to deal with this deep self-hatred she had for herself. Instantly something in me perked up. Upon further journeying into the depths of my soul, I realized I did have a deep self-hatred.
Because of the fall, it’s there. There’s a deep wickedness in my heart that loves to destroy the glory that God created me for. Only in Christ can I truly discover what it means to be fully alive in God and to be restored to the original glory that is pre-fall as a glimpse of what is to come when Christ comes to restore all things.
This deep self-hatred I had for myself was the core reason I would focus so much on “The old dog”. My friend, David would gently ask me during our sessions, what makes you come alive? What did you enjoy doing this past month? It was a slow process, but through the work of Christ’s Spirit I began to realize that I was created for God’s glory and as such God had given me something to do in this world.
I used to be so consumed with avoiding sin, that I was not aware that God had other plans for me. Mulholland in The Deeper Journey says it like this, “One of the greatest detriments to a growing and maturing life in loving union with God is focusing too much on avoiding the vices, on putting to death our false self.”
I began to discover that in Christ, God really delights in me and thus, began to delight in who God has made me to be. I wasn’t just identified by the old dog, there was glory in Dan Crain, that through Christ I have begun and continue to discover. I've sensed God's Spirit saying to me, "Stop asking me to change you." Instead, I ask God to forgive me of my false self and it's fleshly desires, which are a result of the fall, not original glory.
It’s really important to understand that our stories begin in creation and not the fall. Glory comes first and then the fall, then Christ comes to reconcile all things in him as a glimpse of what is to come and thus sets us free to love freely.
In Christ God views me as his beloved child and this is the journey believing in this truth in order to love freely. Galatians 5:1 states, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” We are called as followers of Jesus to live into the freedom that God has already accomplished on the cross. We love freely because right now at this moment, we are free. The victory has already been won, not by us, but by Him.
Paul later in the letter to the Galatians says in chapter 6, “If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, for each one should carry their own load.” Notice what Paul does here. After testing our own actions, understanding our own motives and aligning them with God’s, we can take pride in ourselves and the person that God has created pre-fall, which is being restored through Christ.
Watchman Nee says it like this when we discover this true self, "You will be restored to your true humanity--to be the human vehicle of the divine life. Your faith will open the windows of heaven, for God will move into to do the impossible, -- and this is the specialty of creative Deity. Your friends will be rattled, for in reality you will have become a new creature--old things will have passed away, all things will have become new (2 Cor. 5:17). Through peace with God you will have the found peace of God, which "passeth all understanding.”
Because of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, He has come to set us free from the curse of sin and death and as such begin to restore us to our original glory as a glimpse of what is to come. In Christ we become, “fully illuminated light bulbs.”
I am slowly learning to speak kindly to myself when I do sin and not to shame myself, because Abba is not shaming me. Because of what Christ has done for me, the Heavenly Father no longer sees a sinner, but a saint who is the beloved.
So what does this have to do with loving freely? Everything. If we don’t believe in original glory of creation and whom we were originally designed for, the way I love will always be rooted in shame. I will constantly love out of guilt, co-dependency and coercion. Loving Freely means that in Christ, we are His Beloved, and we begin to discover that there are beautiful things in you that God has placed there for his glory to be used in his kingdom.
Our stories as followers of Christ begins in the garden and as such we all bear the image of God, regardless of how we shame ourselves thinking that we have nothing to offer. When we receive Christ’s love and grace, we come to a place of loving freely and dealing with those inner voices of shame.
What voice are you listening to today? The voice of condemnation telling you that you’re no good, a failure, a disappointment? The voice of the world telling you to prove yourself by what you can do and accomplishment? The voice of others telling you to measure yourself by who they are?
Or….are you listening to the voice of Abba Father who calls you beloved, chosen, fully loved. This is the same voice of the Heavenly Father who looked at Jesus as he was baptized in Mark 1 and said, “This is my son, whom I love, with you I am well pleased.”
Behold, the Old Dog has gone away and a new creation is being birthed in us through Christ everyday!