The Open Window Principal

"It is a tremendous freedom to get rid of all self-consideration and learn to care about only one thing - the relationship between Christ and ourselves." –Oswald Chambers 

              

Welcome back from Fall Break! 

I relish the opportunity that breaks from school give to catch up with family members who aren’t in my regular day-to-day flow of conversations.  I remember having one of those “catch-me-up-on-the-last-three-months-of-your-life” talks with my cousin few Christmas breaks ago.  As I was excitedly sharing with her the results from the spiritual gifts test I’d just taken, she asked me an insightful question that made me pause.  

“One of your spiritual gifts is hospitality, but do you have a hospitable soul?”

Pause to mentally download an image of your own soul.  An abstract place, but suppose it was a physical destination, a room let’s say.  All the elements of life that define you are contained in this space.  Your personality determines the color of the walls, the material on the floor, the style of chairs, the décor, the lighting.  While all soul rooms have electrical wiring available, only those who have trusted Christ for their salvation have electricity flowing through the lighting fixtures in their soul room.  That is the very first aspect of your room that needs evaluation.

What would a stroll through your soul room reveal?  Perhaps a bowl of the fruit of the spirit sits out on a table.  What is the thermostat setting?  Is there a love seat in the corner? Or a peace plant on the windowsill?  Windows line every person’s soul room.  Because God created us as relational beings, our soul room has a way to peer out and observe what lies beyond us.  Our windows let us see into other people’s soul rooms.  Maybe the windows are freshly cleaned or maybe a bit dingy, but no soul room is without these spiritual portals.  

God has a specific design for the Christian soul, and we can find the sketches for it in scripture. Through salvation He lights our soul rooms and through sanctification He continually renovates our soul rooms.  Missionary to India Amy Carmichael put it this way:  “There is always something more in your nature which He wills to mark with the Cross.” The Gospel is not just for salvation and giving light your soul, it is for sustaining you day-to-day.

When Christ enters a person’s soul He lights the first lamp within our room.   Once lies cloaked in darkness are banished, then we can view ourselves as we truly are. Next, He draw’s the curtains, pins them back, and points our attention outside.   The driving idea behind hospitality is putting your guest before yourself.  He wants us to take notice of others and think of their needs before our own.  He wants us to observe the beautiful way He designed others.  Beyond just seeing others, He wants us to really scrutinize others.  It takes knowledge to love.  Rather than just making random guesses at how to love those around us, spend time looking into their soul rooms to discover what would make the most impact.

He wants us to send our personal soul electrician over to darkened rooms around us.  We have knowledge of how to fix the wiring problems they have lived with for so long.  For those already lightened rooms, we send over a maintenance crew to help a brother or sister sharpen their tools, and we receive the same blessing in return.  Iron sharpens iron in Christian community.

Focusing on self is not God’s pattern.  He calls us to selflessly give of what we have emotionally, spiritually, and physically. "Dying to self" is the often used phrase to describe it.  When we live with eyes and hearts for others, the warm sunlight floods in, and we are filled with a joy that is unexplainable.  

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.  In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.” Philippians 2:3-5

Some Christians choose to drop the curtains and turn their attention to spending all their free time on self-aggrandizing projects that will make them look good.  Others nail in planks to board up their windows in fear of an emotional hurricane.  Living in fear of what others will think of them leads them to block themselves off from true community.  

The Gospel is about Jesus coming in and renovating your soul room – bringing in light, changing the atmosphere, and cleaning the windows.  The natural result of those changes is a better ability to love others - and loving others and is the natural  outflow of the light Jesus supplies. And it must be Jesus that cleanses; we are not able to muster up divinely powerful love that changes people’s lives without Him!

Shortly after my cousin asked me about the hospitality of my soul, I came across this quote.  The often-used phrase “dying to self” reminded me of that.  Here in this quote, the anonymous author lists a few ways to express soul hospitality through completely forgetting self and putting the focus on others:

“When you are forgotten or neglected and you don't hurt with the insult, but your heart is happy – that is dying to self.

When your advice is disregarded, your opinions ridiculed, and you refuse to let anger rise in your heart, and take it all in patient, loving silence – that is dying to self.

When you lovingly and patiently bear disorder, irregularity, tardiness, and annoyance…and endure it as Jesus endured it – that is dying to self.

When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation or record your own good works, or itch for praise after an accomplishment, when you can truly love to be unknown – that is dying to self.

When you can see your brother or sister prosper and can honestly rejoice with him, and feel no envy even though your needs are greater – that is dying to self.

When you are content with any food, any offering, any raiment, any climate, or any society – that is dying to self.

When you can take correction, when you can humbly submit inwardly as well as outwardly, with no rebellion or resentment rising up within your heart – that is dying to self.”