Introspection: God Provided

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God Provided

He must increase, but I must decrease.

John 3:30 (NRSV)

Give me Words to speak
Don't let my spirit sleep
'Cause I can't think of anything worth saying
But I know that I owe You my life
So give me Words to speak
Don't let my spirit sleep

From "Give Me Words to Speak" by Aaron Shust

Writing has been a struggle for me lately, for various reasons.  Inspiration and motivation have been in short supply due to the pandemic, the changes of life it has necessitated, and the uncertainty and anxiety it has created.  Also, I recently had some preaching commitments that seemed a bit more stressful than normal.  Because I've been blogging for more than ten years, I've even started to wonder if I've simply run out of things to write.

Normally, I try to post something on this blog every Sunday, unless I take the week off, and I make it a rule to take one week off per month.  Basically, I try to post something either three or four times per month.  Since I've been trying to make some progress in my life over the last couple of years, I've also committed to writing one introspective post each month as a means of checking in with everyone.  In August, after the second and last of my preaching commitments was completed, I decided that I would try to post something as often as I did before the pandemic, after three months of not meeting my monthly goal.

Well, somehow I've been meeting my goal.  I read Gospel passages that made the gears of my mind start turning, and I was able to weave the thoughts I record in my devotional journal into something more fit for public consumption.  After I read my previous perspective to my mother, I commented that, hours earlier, I had nothing to post for the week.  She said, "God provided."

I feel that God has indeed been providing me ideas for blog posts lately.  My previous perspective was written the day before I posted it, and it was based on the passage I read earlier that same day.  One perspective I posted back in August was based on a passage I originally planned not to read but ended up reading anyway.

Recently I read a couple chapters from New Seeds of Contemplation, in which the great Catholic thinker Thomas Merton describes the true self and the false self.  The true self - if I understand it correctly - is the identity God bestows upon a person, while the false self is the persona a person has learned to present to the world.  We have the choice either to work with God to discover and cultivate our true selves or to continue constructing our illusory false selves.  Merton suggests that one's false self does not exist since it is not known by God, that one's true self is hidden with God, and that in discovering God we discover our true selves.¹

Merton references a certain quote of St. Paul²: "It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me."³  To be honest, I cannot say that I find this statement appealing.  Am I meant to cease to exist as a self to the point that I become a mere shell for another, namely Christ, to inhabit?  Am I to aspire to become a mere puppet for God?  I like to think that I have a good grasp on Scripture, but I sincerely hope that I have yet to understand what Paul is saying.

Maybe, when it comes to my writing, part of decreasing so that Christ may increase is depending on God to give me ideas for things to write.  Though I believe that, over the last couple of months, God has given me ideas, the things I wrote were not devoid of me, for I drew from my own experiences when writing them.  Maybe these blog posts were a collaborative effort between God and myself.

For me, 2020 was supposed to be a year for cultivating courage, and I've struggled to figure out what it means to cultivate courage amid a pandemic, when it seems like many aspects of life have to be placed on hold.  I fear that, at times like this, people confuse courage with recklessness, and I wonder if maybe prudence might be better virtue to cultivate right now.  Maybe it requires courage to loosen one's grip on one's plans, and maybe it requires courage to become a little less self-reliant and a little more reliant on God.


Notes:

1. Thomas Merton.  New Seeds of Contemplation.  ch. 5
2. Merton, ch. 6
3. Galatians 2:10 (NRSV)

The photograph of the pen and paper has been released to the public domain.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.