Learning to Get Over Myself

Sometimes I worry that I’ll be discovered as a fraud, which is to say that I’ve tricked you into believing that I have it all together when really I don’t. This is mostly due to me feeling inferior or deficient in just about any role that I’ve been in. One of the most important things I’ve learned in response to this is to get over myself. That is, to follow the Apostle Paul’s example that “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. The life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

Interestingly, I can also go the other way from feeling insufficient to over inflating my abilities. I’m not certain how both can co-exist, but I know that pride is at the root of my human condition. The minute I make it about me, I start manipulating and striving in my own strength. When I make it about Christ, it’s about loving and building the church as He did. It’s hard to get this just right, as I vacillate between the extremes of inadequacy and achievement. Just when I feel resigned to these extremes of my flesh, I am reminded:

“But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” (Romans 8:10-11)

There is life, wonderful life, beyond myself because of Christ and the Spirit who resides in me.