It is like fighting the hydra!

So how are your Youniversity decisions going? Still putting "Others First"? Hardest of all, are you living "Others First" in your heart?

When C.S. Lewis was a new believer, he began to realize immediately how hard it was going to be to put self second. Lewis was a brilliant scholar. He taught at Oxford and was highly respected in the academic community. And yet, he too struggled with putting others first.

The passage below comes from a letter to his childhood friend Arthur:

"During my afternoon 'meditations', which I at least attempt quite regularly now, I have found out ludicrous and terrible things about my own character. Sitting by, watching the rising thoughts to break their necks as they pop up, one learns to know the sort of thoughts that do come. And, will you believe it, one out of every three is a thought of self-admiration: when everything else fails, having had its neck broken, up comes the thought 'What an admirable fellow I am to have broken their necks!' I catch myself posturing before the mirror, so to speak, all day long. I pretend I am carefully thinking out what to say to the next pupil (for his good, of course) and then suddenly I realise I am really thinking how frightfully clever I'm going to be and how he will admire me. . .And then, when you force yourself to stop it, you admire yourself for doing that. It is like fighting the hydra. . . . There seems to be no end to it. Depth under depth of self-love and self-admiration."

Do your thoughts look like a tomato plant so over-run with suckers that it produces no fruit? Or perhaps a marigold bush laden with dead blossoms that must be removed before new blooms can grow?

I know my own thought life can run re-runs like Nick at Nite. Over and over and over the same crummy thoughts. Either they are reminding me of failures or they are self-important or they are "woe-is-I pity nonsence. When my mind is focusing on these me-me-me thoughts, it can't focus on good thoughts- thoughts that are focused on God and on others. I have to constantly tend my thoughts like a diligent gardner. And it is only with the Holy Spirit acting as weed patrol that I can create a healthy thought garden where my heart can grow into fullness in Christ.

Fighting the hydra is an arduous task, even with the Holy Spirit as chief gardner in our lives. But it is through this struggle that we remain humble and realize our need for daily "meditations", for daily communication with God. He loves loves loves for us to come with him with our needs. He aches to help us. God help us never to forget how much we need Him every minute of our existence.

So break out the pruning sheers and prepare the fingers. It's weeding and dead-heading time!