The Role of the Self in Connecting with God

Rather than looking for opportunities to be noticed or influential, to attempt to convince others of my skills or gifting, I must remember that I am closest to God when my self is held most loosely. Should I do this or that? This is usually the wrong question. The point is that I can be part of God’s plan, but God certainly can do God’s plan without me. My ability to fall into the flow of God’s working is in proportion to the looseness of my grasp on my own agenda. When I am all about myself — my issues, my desires, my need to control — I cannot see God clearly. When I find a way to let go of my agenda and wait quietly on the movement of God’s spirit, I am much more likely to be caught up in that movement and carried in whatever direction is needful.

This makes life much simpler than when I am self-focused. Some helpful questions to ask are: Am I joining in with the plan God will do with or without me? Am I seeking ways to point others toward God rather than myself? Am I watching and listening for the sometimes subtle currents of God’s passion? Can I steward God’s plan gently and non-possessively through my part of God’s world? It is no longer, “what should I do?” or “how can I best use my gifts?”, but rather, “what is God doing and how can I be a part of it?”

Several decades ago, Thomas Kelly dealt with this issue by talking about time. The “time now” is the present moment, but one where we get caught up in mental gymnastics and miss the bigger picture because we are distracted by the pressure, regret and fear that temporality breeds. By contrast, the “eternal now” is the present moment that has broken free from both the regrets of the past and the fears of the future.

The Eternal now may counsel: “Undertake this.” Our time-now says: “See what a weakling you proved yourself to be in an earlier case. Better not to try it now”…. Or, in the opposite direction, our time-now may say: “Do this. You are well prepared for it. Your education and training fit you, perhaps to teach, to preach, to counsel, to guide an enterprise. And if you don’t nobody will.” But the Eternal Now in us may say: “Stay, Wait. Don’t rely upon yourself. Don’t think you can reason yourself into your obligation. Know you not that I can raise up of these stones men better able than you do do this?

[Kelley, Thomas (1941). A testament of devotion, Harper & Brothers: New York, pp. 79-80.]

We have trouble discerning God’s will when we focus on our own talents, ministry or education. When self-focused, we don’t see God on God’s own terms. God is not about us, God is about God. Being about me holds me away from God.