Me, My and Mine

Confession: I have a thing for C.S. Lewis.  (And I’ve already told Alex about it so it’s totally ok).  The man is brilliant, a spiritual giant in every sense of the word.  His thoughts so often are the bridge my mind takes between biblical truth and practical application.  I can’t even count how many times I have read Lewis’ words and thought, “Oh, THAT’S what God meant!  Brilliant!”  When I get to Heaven, I want to fall on my knees before Jesus, hug Elizabeth and Mary, shake hands with John the Baptist and Paul, and then have coffee with C.S. Lewis—in that order.

A few months ago I read The Screwtape Letters, and at the time I was digesting so much good stuff that not all of it sat with me.  But lately, what I have been learning is taking me back to something I remember thinking about when I read the book—my major overuse of a certain set of possessive pronouns: me, my, and mine.

And now I wonder: What would happen to my faith if I took those words out of my vocabulary? 

My time would no longer be mine but God’s time—with no detail escaping his notice and nothing happening that he cannot walk me through, my day would be spent actually doing what he asked of me.  I would be less concerned about my schedule and more concerned that how I spent the time I was given—even in the mundane—was kingdom minded.

My knee would no longer be mine but part of God’s workmanship.  Surgeries, rehab, and bad news have characterized the better part of the last nine years, and I have always viewed it is as my knee, my ability to move, and my comfort to lose.  I am wondering now that if I had seen my knee—and my whole body— as God’s gift to begin with, I might not have struggled so much to watch the athlete Katie turn into the always-limping Katie.  I might have taken comfort in the fact that God has always known what my body would be capable of, that He still knows what it will be capable of, and he has me right where he wants me.

My marriage would no longer be mine but God’s love story on display.  Pretty soon I am going to be a bride, and all of the language surrounding the preparations of the day have been about, well, mostly me: I tell people what my wedding colors are, where my wedding venue is, what my bridesmaids will wear.  But what if none of this day is mine but His?  What if I really saw this wedding as a party of gratitude that God gave me Alex so that He could teach me more about Himself?  And what if I stopped talking about marriage like Alex and I are the possessors of it but like we are the stewards of the amazing gift it is? It would probably have changed how I have prepared for it, and it will certainly change how I live it.  If I really believe it is a brief glimpse of the love He has for us, it becomes less about me right away.   And on that note…

My fiancé would no longer be mine but God’s son and the man He picked out to love me.  I would consistently treat Alex with the respect he deserves, and I would worry less that my needs are being met and more that his heart is safe and secure in Jesus.  I would pray for him in bolder, bigger, more faithful ways than I do.   

My house would no longer be mine, but the place God gave us to live where, hopefully, a family is raised with the truth of God as a foundation and friends are welcomed, cared for, and prayed for.

My money would no longer be mine but God’s blessing for me to steward and bless others with.

My opinions, my education, my friends, my goals, my possessions, my future…

What if none of this is mine?  What if I truly treated everything in my life like it belongs to the One who gave it to me in the first place?  That’s a humbling thought for me.

In the animated movie Finding Nemo, the seagull “characters” pop up a few times throughout the film and make everyone laugh as they all fly toward the treat that has been thrown at them, yelling, “Mine!” “Mine!” “Mine!” “Mine!” “Mine!”  We are certainly not seagulls, but I wonder sometimes if we are so different.  How often do we find ourselves competing for the money, the job, the reputation, the car, the clothes or the relationships just so that we can call them “mine?” 

Lewis writes it from the point of view of Screwtape this way (and remember in this phrase ‘the Enemy’ is referring to God and ‘our father’ is referring to Satan):  “we have taught men to say ‘my God’ in a sense not really very different from ‘my boots’, meaning ‘the God on whom I have a claim for my distinguished services and whom I can exploit from the pulpit—the God I have done a corner in’… And all the time the joke is that the word ‘Mine’ in its fully possessive sense cannot be uttered by a human being about anything.  In the long run either Our Father or the Enemy will say ‘Mine’ of each thing that exists, and especially of each man.  They will find out in the end, never fear, to whom their time, their souls and their bodies really belong—certainly not to them, whatever happens."

The sin nature in each one of us has a default mode of “mine”—and never on this earth will we master the art of complete selflessness and holding our hands open to blessings.  Without exception, everything under Heaven was given to us; but daily we have to fight down the pride that says "I earned it, I deserve, and it is mine."  But maybe we could just start by thinking about all the uses of me, my and mine in our day, and do our best to remember they are most certainly not ours, but His.

*The picture above represents the "everything under Heaven" idea- and it was taken by the amazingly- and humbly- talented, Katie Trayser*