How Much, Lord?

I decided on Sunday that I must include this quote that JJ used in his sermon on my blog. It's something that I've been thinking about a lot lately. It's an excerpt from C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. (I'm having a little trouble with the font, and frankly, I've lost patience so you'll have to forgive the irregularities.)

The ordinary idea which we all have before we become Christians is this. We take as the starting point our ordinary self with its various desires and interests. We then admit that something else – call it ‘morality’ or ‘decent behavior,’ or ‘the good of society’ – has claims on this self: claims which interfere with its own desires. What we mean by ‘being good’ is giving in to those claims. Some of the things the ordinary self wanted to do turn out to be what we call ‘wrong’; well, we must give them up. Other things turn out to be what we call ‘right’: well, we shall have to do them.

But, we are hoping all the time that when all the demands have been met, the poor natural self will still have some chance, and some time, to get on with its own life and do what it likes. In fact, we are very much like an honest man paying his taxes. He pays them all right, but he does hope that there will be enough left over for him to live on. Because we are still taking our natural self as the starting point.

The Christian way is different: harder and easier. Christ says, ‘Give me all. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there. I want to have the whole tree down. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked – the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.

All I can say is, Wow. Is this within my capacity? It must be, otherwise the Lord wouldn't ask it of me. Lord, help me to discover how to let go of myself and my desires and put on Yourself instead.