Wow, if I was to tell you everything on my mind right now, you yourself would be overwhelmed just with the commotion of my brain. There seems to be so much traffic up there, I could charge a toll and become instantly rich. Hah. Ok, bad joke, but seriously there's a lot going on up there. With all the busyness of my own little world and the hectic schedule that seems to leave me so much free time to think on all these things, I easily become self absorbed. "Its all about me." Yeah, thats been a regular visitor upstairs lately.
What I have come to realize is that being self absorbed doesn't just mean being cocky when it comes to your own self image. In fact, it could be defined in the exact opposite way. It takes the same route, hand in hand, with self pity. How do I know? I've seem to take that road quite frequently lately.
I'm just gonna throw my own personal situation out there for you. Thats what blogs are for right? Ok, whether you agree with me or not I'm still gonna tell you...
Well, if you don't know this about me yet you will now. I am the worst, and I mean absolute worst, critic when it comes to analyzing my own character, behavior, talents, and so on. You name it, I'm hard on myself about it. I've even been hard on myself for being hard on myself.
Recently, God's really been showing me this through my friends and family. He cares for me, so why wouldn't he try his best to get me to stop tearing His precious masterpiece down. Anyway, last night was one of those relaxed kind of chilled nights where not much was happening in my world. Well, physically that was. Mentally, I was quite the busy bee.
I decided to go outside and just spend some time with the Lord. Well, if any of you know where I live, you know how it can be a tad on the creepy side to sit alone outside in the dark. Reason being, I live in the middle of the woods with no lights in sight. The quietest of cracks or pops sent my suspicions swirling so I decided to let my dog out so she could sit there with me and be the good little guard dog her German Shepherd reputation presumes. Well, she is everything but that. As I sat there, marveling at the stars in amazement out of nowhere she would come up right to my face with her slobbery tongue hanging out. It was all she could do to be close to me. She wasn't happy or satisfied until at least some part of her was touching me or she was practically swallowing my face. In that small little moment, those where God seems to reveal the biggest things to me, He gently said, "thats how I am. I'm not satisfied until I'm right next to you... touching you, spending time with you, experiencing you, loving you."
Who knew my slobbery, poor excuse for a guard dog would be something God used to describe Himself. My point in all of this, is that its not about us. Its so easy to become absorbed in our own little worlds and even begin to bash ourselves for doing so. But this life is all about Him. A relationship with Him. He loves you no matter how many mistakes you have made. "None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us." Romans 8:38, 39
So when everything seems to be crazy and a bit overwhelming in your own world, look to Him. He's bigger than all of it. Thats what I'm currently working on. But a big part of it is letting yourself make mistakes. We are all human and are all doomed to fail at some point in our lives. Thats why we have the Holy Spirit on the inside of us. "Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am" Philippians 4:13. He infuses His strength in us. Its made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). So go easy on yourself. And if you are around me and I'm bashing myself remind me of this. I'm just like everyone else. On this journey... day by day. Messing up, succeeding, trusting, relying.
