Self-Awareness and Hearing God
Emotional maturity is crucial to our relationship with God. Learning to accept ourselves for who we are, enables us to accept others for who they are.
And the first and most important step in accepting ourselves and others for who we really are begins when we learn a vital life truth:
When I am weak, then I am strong.1
How true that is. Think about it. When God chose to reveal himself to us fully and completely, he came in weakness.
Conceived by a teenage girl out of wedlock.
Born in a dirty stable, surrounded by animals. A feed trough served as his crib.
Raised in a despised town in a region known as Galilee of the Gentiles, the pagans, the unclean.
His friends included the outcast, the despised, the spat upon, sat upon, looked down upon.
He was rejected and called a heretic in league with the Devil by the religious leaders in the “church” of his day.
He refused to join a camp, religious, political, or otherwise.
He was despised and rejected.2
He died a bloody death while his adversaries mocked him.
How weak and how foolish this man, Jesus, was!
BUT
The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.3
Back to this idea of emotional maturity and accepting ourselves for who we truly are. It boils down to recognizing how weak we are. How vulnerable. Dust.
The things we rely on for security and strength are illusions. They’re fragile, fleeting. It doesn’t take much to drive this reality home in our lives. Our health, our wealth, our dignity; all these things are hanging by a thread. Refusing to acknowledge this reality is to live in the illusion.
But as we lay our pride aside, as we look beyond the things that bolster the false image of ourselves, we realize that we aren’t so different from anyone else.
And as we learn to accept this truth, we begin to see and interact with others differently. We grow strong in our spirits.
And as we grow stronger through accepting our weaknesses, we stop focusing on our differences and begin focusing on what we all have in common -
Hopes and dreams.
Failures and heartbreak.
Good days, bad days.
Challenging relationships.
Disappointments and pain.
Hopes and dreams.
These are things we all have in common. And all of them begin and end with hopes and dreams.
Our humanity is defined by our hopes and dreams and the recognition of the hopes and dreams of others. All others.
As you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me.4
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
That’s the path that leads to God. That’s the way and promise of Jesus.
In Christ,
Dan
Check out my podcasts from Church on the Edge and my books on Kindle.
You can listen to my weekly messages at Embrace Church, High Point.
2 Corinthians 12:10.
Isaiah 53:3.
I Corinthians 1:25.
Matthew 25:40.