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D-7837
When we feel that we just can’t connect with God, we can be sure of one thing: it isn’t God’s fault. He hasn’t moved. He waits with anticipation to have fellowship with us. So, when barriers come between us and God, it’s because we’ve allowed them to be there.
A barrier that can come between us and God is that we are often just too self-absorbed. Life is all about us. Our thoughts center on us. We are the center of our world, so God just can’t penetrate that barrier.
We’ve been led to believe that all we need to live a fulfilling life is to have good self-esteem. What I’ve come to learn is that self is not my solution; self is my problem! True, I need to see my worth in Christ and appreciate who I am in him, but striving for more good self-esteem or self-confidence just makes me self-focused, and that inevitably takes me down the wrong path.
If I want to listen to God—really hear what he wants to say to me—I have to take myself off the throne of my heart and let God be God again. I find that almost daily I have to remember to make God the highest priority in my life. I have to go through my daily activities with the conscious awareness that it’s not all about me, it’s all about God. It’s so easy to become self-absorbed, so we have to stand guard against it all the time.
Jesus gave us principles that seem contradictory to our self-focused minds: if we want to save our life, we have to lose it; if we want to be first, we have to be willing to be last; if we will humble ourselves, he will exalt us. The weird thing is that when we do it Jesus’ way—the backwards way, if you please—we discover that it works. Our burdens are lighter, our joy is greater, and our peace is secure when we get ourselves out of the way so that we can hear the voice of God.
If God wanted to speak to you today, would he have to break through your barrier of being so self-focused that you can’t hear him? I challenge you to a one-day experiment: determine to get through one day without talking about yourself. Make a conscious effort not to think about yourself, your problems, or your concerns. Ask God to make you aware of how self-absorbed you are, and to deliver you. I think you’ll be amazed at what you discover. You’ll also find that when God breaks through that barrier, you are getting into that abundant life that Jesus came to give you.