"No man can do properly what he is called upon to do in this life unless he can learn to forget his ego and act as an instrument of God." -W. H. Auden

Allowing God to fill the throne in our hearts that our fallen nature screams should be occupied by us is the fundamental battle of sanctification. This desire for self-rule is the primary result of Adam and Eve’s decision to eat of the fruit prohibited to them by God. At that moment they, and we, joined the Devil in his own rebellion and acquired a nature not too unlike his. Instead of being perfectly focused on our Creator, and thus transformed more and more into His image, our race instead acquired an all-consuming ego. This obsession with ourselves has condemned us to forever try to find in self-rule what can only be had when God is the one at the very center of our lives. Until He fully occupies the throne of our heart we will know the pain and destruction that is caused when love for God is trumped by selfish love for ourselves.

This is particularly true when Christians who are little surrendered to God’s rule try to find and pursue a vocational goal in their lives. We call a divine summons to a life-ministry a "calling." Hearing and responding to such a calling is impossible when self-generated goals connected to our egos hold center-stage in our hearts. Knowing calling and surrender to God’s will for our lives go hand and hand. In various ways God may use people who are only partially surrendered to Him, but He will not bring them to the fullness of His good purpose for their lives, to their full part in His plan, until they give themselves completely to Him. The Bible tells us that we will find God when we seek Him with all our hearts. This is also true as far as finding his specific calling for our individual lives.

On more than one occasion a believer has found himself pursuing a possible career in full-time ministry only to find him or herself crashing against a vocational brick wall. Circumstances almost seem to conspire to destroy a promising new job, whether in the secular or sacred realm. This results in a very crestfallen (and oft times depressed) Christian. Then, in retrospect, it becomes apparent that the problem was in choosing to do something the person decided to do rather than God. We may try to put a spiritual spin on self-direction in the vocational realm but if we are not where He wants us to be, in the center of His will, we will remain frustrated and confused about what is the purpose of our lives.

The surrender of the ego and its replacement with the rule of the Lord through His Spirit must be our greatest spiritual priority. But how do we facilitate this replacement? There are no easy formulas here. The very heartaches that result from listening to the "Imperial Self’ and acting in the mode of Adam and Eve can be one of the things that bring us to a point of surrender. C.S. Lewis once called pain "God’s megaphone to a deaf world." and God does use self-inflicted pain to bring us to our senses and give us a strong desire to finally give in to His complete rule over our existence. Coming to better know the goodness of our Lord, over time, is another motivator for relinquishing control of every aspect of our lives. Prayer for help in surrendering is another strong tool in pursuing the deepest possible sanctification of our lives to our God.

Ultimately, though, we must allow Him to work His own will within us and bring us to the blessed place of complete submission. We can choose to cooperate or we can choose to obstruct this process. The ego is strong in every member of our fallen race and we must decide whether we will serve ourselves to our own hurt, or instead serve the One who loves us perfectly.