Six Paths to Self-Forgetfulness

Over the next few minutes, I’d like us to consider a quality that C.S. Lewis describes as the cheerful hallmark of humility. Tim Keller calls it the doorway into freedom. John Piper names it the best friend of deep wonder. And you and I may know it as one of life’s most elusive gifts: self-forgetfulness.

True joy does not live in the land of mirrors. Peace of mind is not found inside us, no matter how much we look within. No personality test can usher our souls into contentment. It’s true that we must know something of ourselves to live well in this world — at times, we must even examine ourselves. But the healthiest Christians hardly consider what psychological categories they belong to, and they hardly care how they compare to others. They mainly forget about themselves and live.

When I say all of that, I feel a little like Moses on the eastern side of the Jordan River, gazing into the promised land. I can see this country of self-forgetfulness, and I have tasted its joys, but I don’t yet live there. On most days, I long to leave the wilderness of self-consciousness and join the saints whose joys are many and whose thoughts of self are few. And I trust that more than a few of you could say the same.

Now, it’s true that God alone can give this gift. He alone can take a soul that is curved in on itself and gently bend it outward. But as we pray for him to lift our eyes upward and outward, we can do something. So, I want to offer an acronym to you this afternoon that will lead us through the rest of our time. The acronym is the word forget: F-O-R-G-E-T.

If you find yourself too focused on yourself, consider with me these six modest steps toward joyful self-forgetfulness.

F: Fill your mind with Jesus.

If you have ever told yourself to forget yourself, to stop thinking about yourself, you have probably also discovered the powerlessness of that command. Self-forgetfulness happens indirectly: We don’t so much forget ourselves as remember something better. And nothing warrants our remembrance more than Jesus Christ.

The Father commands us to listen to him (Matthew 17:5). The Spirit is given to glorify him (John 16:14). The apostles bid us to behold him (2 Corinthians 3:18). And the angels never cease to worship him (Revelation 5:6–14). His riches are unsearchable; his glories are incomparable; the joys of those who love him are inexpressible (Ephesians 3:8; Hebrews 3:3; 1 Peter 1:8).

So, how can we fill our minds with him? In any of a hundred ways. If Christ’s riches are really unsearchable, then they invite creative exploration — and the more we seek, the more we’ll find. Maybe, in your Bible reading, you could always keep a bookmark in the Gospels. Or you could find rich, robust books about the person and work of Jesus. Or you could get to know the loveliness of Christ through the meditations of Christ-saturated saints. However you do it, seek to make Jesus your morning sun and evening star, your afternoon oasis, the joy of every hour.

The old Scottish pastor Samuel Rutherford wrote, “I am sure the saints at their best are but strangers to the weight and worth of the incomparable sweetness of Christ.” And so, with him, make it your happiness “to win new ground daily in Christ’s love” (The Loveliness of Christ, 22, 27). Catch a new sight of him. Enjoy a new glory in him.

O: Obey more than you analyze.

Consider a couple familiar scenarios for those of us who are introspective. You just finished leading a Bible study, and now, on the drive home with your roommate, your mind replays half a dozen comments you made. Or while singing in corporate worship, you keep gauging your own emotions and comparing your demeanor to those around you. Do you know what that’s like?

In moments like these (and lots of others), self-analysis can feel so right and even so responsible, because we don’t want to miss our mistakes and sins — we don’t want to remain strangers to ourselves. But at the same time, we would be wise to consider how self-analysis can sometimes lead us into subtle disobedience.

Think about it: As long as you replay moments from the Bible study, you fail to love the roommate in the car with you. Or as long as you consider your own heart in worship, you fail to behold the Lord of the song. And even in solitude, when self-analysis doesn’t keep us from loving our neighbors, it often still distracts us from other kinds of obedience: doing our work, saying our prayers, getting our sleep, or thinking of the honorable and excellent and lovely (Philippians 4:8).

Now, there is a place for self-analysis — for paying attention to ourselves, watching ourselves, and confessing our sins (Luke 17:3; 21:34; 1 John 1:9). But that place is not at the dinner table, or in conversation with a friend, or over our work desks, or in any other sphere where God has made our duty plain. When we’re there, he calls us to look to the interests of others, or speak a grace-filled word, or work heartily as for him (Philippians 2:4; Ephesians 4:29; Colossians 3:23).

So, when introspective thoughts intrude upon your mind, don’t assume that God expects you to heed them. Instead, ask yourself, “Are these thoughts distracting me from more important obedience?” And if so, tell your inner self, “I should maybe think about that sometime soon, but right now I have a different job to do.” And then ask God for grace to do it.

R: Repent and confess quickly.

Imagine with me that you have spilled a bowl of cereal in your living room. But instead of cleaning it up right away, you go about your day with that milky mess on the floor. You keep catching glimpses of it, and in the back of your head, you know it’s there. You have a vague sense that it might be damaging the floorboards, but still you carry on.

I know that scenario sounds ridiculous. But many of us respond to sin similarly. Say that sometime in the morning, you make a thoughtless comment, or you neglect an obvious responsibility, or you welcome a twisted thought. You sin. But instead of cleaning up the mess right away, instead of confessing the sin quickly, you linger. You keep stepping around the sin. And so you walk through a haze of vague guilt, background accusation, stumbling self-consciousness.

It makes me think of the old hymn: “Oh, what peace we often forfeit; oh, what needless pain we bear; all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer!” Brothers and sisters, do we not have an advocate in heaven (1 John 2:1)? Do we not have a Father who runs to welcome his returning children (Luke 15:20)? Do we not have a gospel big enough for every sin we could bring?

“Place yourself before the goodness of God in his good world. Walk on some path of pleasure long enough to get lost.”

The truth is that harboring guilt has no atoning power. Nor does God tell us to confess only after feeling awful through the afternoon. Instead, everything in him, everything in the gospel, everything in his word bids us to come right now, right away. Respond to the first pang of guilt by saying, “I will go to my Father.” You really can sit down, confess and renounce your sin outright, receive forgiveness in Christ, and move on.

God promises that he forgets the sins he forgives. And surely that means we can forget them too. And in forgetting our sins, we might just forget ourselves.

G: Get lost in something good.

When was the last time you were rapt? Are you familiar with that word? It refers to one of the most self-forgetful and pleasurable experiences God gives. One author puts it this way. To be rapt is to be “completely absorbed, engrossed, fascinated, perhaps even ‘carried away.’ . . . [This experience] underlies life’s deepest pleasures, from the scholar’s study to the carpenter’s craft to the lover’s obsession” (The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, 86). When we become rapt before some beauty, some hobby, some person, we lose ourselves — even if only for a few moments — and then find ourselves all the better for it.

Scripture gives all sorts of examples of rapt believers. Often, the examples come in the context of worship (Psalm 27:4). But other times, we see believers lose themselves in something God has made — like when the wise man of Proverbs stands amazed at the ant (Proverbs 6:6–11), or when Jesus bends down to notice the splendor of the lily (Matthew 6:28–29), or when the author of Psalm 104 praises God for sky and sun and moon and rain and sheep and grass.

When was the last time you were so engrossed, so blissfully lost? When was the last time you even found yourself in a context where you could be? When was the last time you took a long walk in the woods, or sat down at a true feast, or read a book far more beautiful than “useful”?

However busy you may be, find a way — some way — to place yourself regularly before the goodness of God in his good world, to open your eyes, to walk on some path of pleasure long enough to get lost.

E: Embrace your God-given callings.

I’m a fairly self-reflective person. But for as inward as I can be at times, I used to spend much more time poring over my soul. If you were to look through my journals from college, you would find page upon page of agonizing introspection. But then you would see the entries slowly taper off until you saw page after page of blank.

Now, that happened for several reasons, but one of the more significant is simply that I got busier. I got more involved with my church. I took more classes. I started working more hours. So, my solitary days gave way to good, God-given callings (or responsibilities). And they brought to me a blessed kind of busyness. They were a friend of self-forgetfulness.

When dark thoughts lure us inward, when we feel ourselves falling into the vortex of self, what a gift it is to have a friend to serve, or a spouse to love, or an infant to console, or dishes to wash, or neighbors to help, or churches to build, or work projects to accomplish, or any of a dozen other needs to meet. Callings like these give a glorious objectivity to our days.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you fill your days so full that you have no room for quiet mornings before God, or calm moments through the day, or leisurely Sabbath-like rests. But I am suggesting that you embrace a few big callings in life — and that you hear in them the voice of your God saying, “Husband, love your wife” (Ephesians 5:25); “Mother, train up your toddler” (Proverbs 22:6); “Student, study hard” (Proverbs 2:1–5); “Friend, stir up your brother” (Hebrews 10:24); “Church member, meet the needs of the saints” (Romans 12:13).

In other words, hear in these callings the voice of God calling you out of yourself.

T: Thank God always and for everything.

Finally, however self-conscious and inward you feel, resolve to thank God “in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18) — or as Paul puts it in Ephesians 5:20, thank him “always and for everything.”

Morbid introspection and Godward gratitude work against each other. Introspection takes us deep underground, but gratitude lifts our eyes to a big and bright sky. Introspection curves us inward, but gratitude bends us outward. Introspection sends us into a hall of mirrors, where we see ourselves and yet so often become deceived — but gratitude fills our thoughts with the Father of lights, our good and giving God (James 1:17).

In 1 Chronicles 23:30, we read that the Levites “were to stand every morning, thanking and praising the Lord, and likewise at evening.” Now, you and I aren’t Levites, but what might happen if we matched that godly practice? What if, at least twice a day, we turned around to notice the many gifts God has given, to see the goodness and mercy chasing us home (Psalm 23:6)? We might find that thanksgiving snaps us back to reality, speaking a gospel louder than our inward thoughts. It can be a remembrance of God that helps us forget ourselves.

So, seek to fill your mind with Jesus. Obey more than you analyze. Repent and confess quickly. Get lost in something good. Embrace your God-given callings. And however stuck you feel inside yourself, thank God always and for everything.