For a significant portion of my life, I have believed that following God means losing one's self. Kenosis. Self-emptying. My dreams revolved around this ideal. But as life unfolded, as my heart grew old and weary of the daily grinds of living, I woke up to having a one, tired spirit. Heavily eroded. Broken is some places. Jaded and lonely.
I have discovered, that God's great dream for me is not to be great—but to be holy. Not holy in the way most people understand holiness. But holy in the sense of serving with the right intention. Perhaps, what he wants for me is to not be burdened by the unnecessary toils of struggling with the sincerity of service. I have lost the possibility of a degree (for now) and my title as leader in a community so I can serve him without distractions. And if I remain, if I choose to still serve without being seen as somebody, I can focus on the serving. If I remain after the seeming failures, my life may be made up of insignificant actions from a nobody—a sincere nobody. And that is the point of it all. Sincerity. In after thought, no matter how much I give of myself for his purpose, I can never add or subtract from his glory. He is God. Everything, even my own strength and capabilities, are from him. The only thing I can offer is a sincere heart. Nothing else.
God does not call me to lose my self. In fact he is calling me to find it. He does not call me to sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice. He calls me to truly live, to savor life, to experience. “Don't die for me, Child. I already did that for you. Live. Discover this universe I have created for you.” Life is his gift to me, and I must feel its myriad textures because that is the only way he can be glorified. He made all things marvelous—the sky is filled with things worth marveling at, even my body is a universe that is as mysterious as the universe itself, or the half-explored oceans, an unfathomable puzzle, an enigma. God is an artist, he made wonderful artworks with his Word—and how else can he be given praise but by living in wonder, awe-struck at his works.
I first truly encountered God when I was young and on fire. He was not in gilded altars and perfumed pedestals. I met him not as a far-away God. I met him as a Revolutionary God who rebelled against what is unjust in his society, a God who sided with the oppressed, ate with sinners, comforted widows... a God who washed the feet of his followers. A counter-culture savior. He did not follow the crowd but walked on an unfamiliar road. A radical God. Radical in the sense that he went back to the root of his belief system—what is loving. And died for it.
Now, older and filled with battle-scars, I meet him again in another form, He is beyond containment or definitions that I cannot perceive all of him at once. I meet him now as an artist-God who creates and recreates. Who makes and remakes. A potter. A sculptor. A painter of dreams. A maker of songs that can make a soul sing and sing again after being broken.