Sharon Hodde Miller - Free of Me Participants Guide: Why Life Is Better When Its Not about You

Are you looking for accolades? Are you looking for applause? Are you looking for approval? Are you looking for acceptance? Because those things will kill you. The Devil will make sure you get all of that. Especially early, and especially young, so that you then collapse when youre unapplauded, when youre unapproved, when youre unaccepted, and when youre unwanted.

Christine Caine

T his is a story about a woman who didnt realize she had made her life all about her.

She was a woman so focused on her self-image that her relationships with God and others and her attitude toward herself suffered. She maintained perfect social media platforms, volunteered for every church event, and did everything she could to be the perfect Christian woman. Over time, she became exhausted with trying to maintain the perfect image.

That woman was me. I thought my focus was on God. I was wrong.

If someone were to ask you, Is your focus on God? youd want to answer, Yes! right? After all, you probably are deeply faithful and have an active prayer lifeinterceding for yourself and your family but also, heartily, for your friends and the people in your circle. And you love Gods Word. You engage in a community of faith. You long to glorify Jesus. Its all true, no doubt, but what happens when you see a mirror? Do you immediately look at your own reflection or beyond it?

Honestly, we are all more focused on ourselves than we might think. Our self-preoccupation affects everythingour relationships, our jobs, our self-image. We tend to make everything about us, but the reality is that following Christ is not about us.

In this first session, lets open our hearts to the truth that we are more self-focused than we think, and certainly more than we want to be. Ill introduce what I call the mirror reflexour tendency to look at ourselves in a reflective surface no matter where we are, losing sight of our true purpose. And in this session, well start the journey of what pastor Tim Keller calls self-forgetfulness. Well start the journey of being free of me.

Before watching video 1, read the introduction and chapters 1, 2, and 14 in Free of Me.

1. Do you relate to Adrians story? If so, has being a good Christian become a terrible master in your life?

2. Does the idea of the mirror reflex ring true to you? How so? How have you seen it manifest in your own life?

3. For many of us, the problem is not that we think poorly about ourselves. The problem is that we can t stop thinking about ourselves. If the root of insecurity is low self-esteem and self-preoccupation, how do you manage insecurity and its causes? To what or whom do you turn, and what messages do you embrace?

How can you replace those messages that lead to insecurity with ones of self-forgetfulness?

4. Read and pray over Psalm 139:2324. How does the Holy Spirit speak to you through this passage? Whats the difference between being a good Christian and living in the way everlasting?

5. Read and pray over Hebrews 12:12. In light of the mirror reflex, and knowing about the ancient story of Narcissus, how do you fix your eyes on Jesus?

6. [Jesus] knew better than anyone that healing is a sign of the kingdom of God, not a lesser priority or a thing to be rushed. Jesus also understood that we cannot run the race marked out for us (Heb. 12:1) if we are too wounded even to stand. As you take stock of your self-focus and its unfortunate by-product, insecurity, what healing do you see needs to be done so you can run the race set out for you by Christ?

7. Understanding the difference between self-focus and confidence is sometimes difficult. Why do we so easily confuse them? How can we tell the difference?

8. The problem is not the body but the flesh , the human power that opposes dependence on God . What is the difference between forgetting yourself and neglecting yourself? How do you do one but not the other?