It's not about me...

It’s not about me, it’s about God. This has been a theme for me for the last 8 years or so. I first learned it the summer after my first year of college; I had been asked to restart the youth group at my home church and had signed on with gusto. A few weeks passed after accepting the position and I began to think: “Who in the world am I to do this? There has to be someone with more knowledge, more experience, more faith who could do this job.” But despite my self-doubt, I was the one who had been chosen and who had accepted—so I had a job to do. What I learned from that experience was that it wasn’t about the gifts and abilities that I brought to the table—it was about what I allowed God to do through me. It wasn’t about me; it was about God. I learned that lesson various times through the summer—or maybe it took all those lessons all summer long for me to actually learn it! That theme has reemerged for me at various points in my life, work, faith, and ministry ever since. These days I seem to be relearning and reusing this mantra to support me in my work and in my discernment. When you get right down to it, it’s not about me, it’s about what I let God do through me. Now, that doesn’t mean that I just sit on my thumbs and wait for God to do something, I do LOTS of work, but the fruits that work produces is really about what God is doing through the work I am doing. It’s a relationship of mutuality, but the last word does not pertain to me, it pertains to God, so I can’t let myself be consumed by my own self-doubts or my own pretention about my capabilities. It’s not about me; it’s about God.