So often we think that everything begins when we step through the door. We think the project happened because we had a brilliant idea, and are convinced that the mission was accomplished because we chose to participate. But things don't start when we have a "vision," or we think of a new way of doing things, choose to act, have a burst of creative inspiration, give, or pray. God's story is the already-in-motion story, a story that was happening just fine before we arrived and is going to go on just fine with or without you and me.
That's why we should wake up each day on the lookout for the Story of God, constantly thinking to ourselves, "God is already here. What is He up to?" (p. 108)
From i am not but i know I AM
Few reminders are necessary to remind me what I'm not. I've experienced too much embarrassment and failure to conclude that I'm big stuff. My greater struggle is attempting to understand why He bothers including me at all, as if the "me" is still the determining factor. He must continually remind me that His plan does not hinge on my allegiance, and that His wonderful grace allows the willing to share a scene with the Famous One. He sets His mind on the demonstration of His glory, and we are an act in the demonstration. Giglio continues:
Just because we agree that God is bigger than our ability to comprehend doesn't mean that we automatically love and trust Him. And many, even among Christ's followers, don't. Not really. They don't trust His intentions, His reliability, His sensitivity to their needs, His timing. As you'd expect, then, they're reluctant to let go of their own story -- no matter how small, self-focused, or unrewarding -- to be a part of His. (p. 139)
This hits a bit closer to home. I once journaled, "If God has stripped me of the delight in everything the world desires, it seems that I cling to the bag of bones that remains, because otherwise there would be nothing left of 'me.'" There are days when I still fear this to be true. I become so grieved over losing any remaining identity of "Anthony," that I miss the wonder of Christ in me. But He does not empty us for the sake of some Zen self-dismissal; He does so to fill us with His Spirit, so that we might showcase His grand production!
I tire of feeling like nothing while dismissing Him who is everything. It is much less about who I am not than who HE IS. John the Baptist's vow to become less is only wise in that he allows Christ to become greater. What a fool I become when I fall face down, intending humility, but never look to the heavens for His magnificence! To conclude:
And God is determined that the story will remain about Him, concluding with the unending applause of heaven. His purposed preoccupation with His glory is a river that no man can tame, a sovereign tide that makes the pride-filled current of Eden, destructively massive as it is, seem like a desert trickle after a brief shower. As He did with Pharaoh, God will use the greatest pride of man to amplify His glory, insuring in the end that every life and every tongue affirms His fame (Exodus 14:17-18)
To joyfully choose to make our lives count for His renown is to join His cause and to get on board with what He is already doing with or without us. In so doing, we make sure our lives count for what matters most while enjoying for all time the very best God had to offer.
Which is Himself. (p. 166)
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