There’s a love/hate relationship with self-denial overseas for me. 

When we sold 70% of our stuff before leaving, when we wept through airport security, when we lived with intermittent water and electricity—there was a part of me crumbling, yet a part of me loving the chance to say, “This much, Jesus. I love you this much and more.”

There’s even a part of me on home assignment that felt annoyed or judgmental about the pettiness of some people’s focus of conversation. I cherished what God had shown me through pain, through cultural separation. 

Yet like Paul, “I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me” (Romans 7:21). During a season (yet again) where God didn’t intervene how I thought He would—I came to realize my identity as a global worker had become a sort of playing card in my heart. 

I didn’t just envision God as pleased with me. I saw myself as a more elite Christian, and more deserving of God’s favor because of what we’d sacrificed and how we lived our lives. Maybe you can see how my life echoed Paul’s words to the Philippians: “If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more…” (3:7). 

Paul lists the accomplishments of his day, those equivalent or greater than being the one allowed to present a slideshow at church or listen to Grandma tell her friends you’re a “global worker.” 

But in that entitlement, I swiftly upended the Gospel I spoke to myself.

Just five verses earlier, Paul calls those promoting circumcision “dogs…evildoers.” Why? It wasn’t because they performed minor surgery. It’s because this emphasis on an act for the sake of worthiness before God suddenly placed someone’s faith in what they did. 

So I’m actively working on laying down my spiritual resumé before God. Because “whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.”