I had no idea how many masks I was wearing to play ‘the game’ in front of others and also to hide from myself. I will share a part of my journey in the next post, but first I want to convey how self-awareness is essential to being in God’s Presence.
I happened upon this quote yesterday from Thomas Green’s, Weeds Among the Wheat
Many say it is very difficult to know God since we do not see him, hear him, or touch him as we do another human being. That is true, of course, but I have become convinced that the greatest obstacle to real discernment [walking in the presence of God]…is not the intangible nature of God, but our own lack of ‘self-knowledge- even our unwillingness to know ourselves as we truly are. Almost all of us wear masks, not only when facing others but even when looking in the mirror (page 22).
John Calvin opened his Institutes of Christian Religion with the idea that you can’t really know God without knowing yourself and that you can’t really know yourself without knowing God. Calvin says it is difficult to say which understanding comes first. They are this closely related. 3 years ago my view of God was much smaller than it is today. It has been this piece of self-awareness that has made much of God.
The Lord wants us, our true selves, just as we are. It is when we do inventory of ourselves, noting what is happening on the inside, that we can begin to see the masks we need to lay down so that we can take an honest step towards our maker.
This may sound ridiculous but I literally had to set an alarm on my phone to go off multiple times a day so I could remember to ask myself, ‘What am I feeling and why?’ Sometimes there would not be space to ponder but the more I explored the more I wanted to continue doing the hard work because dots started to connect and light started to shine through the cracks into my darkness.
St. Augustine once said, “God is more near to you than you are to yourself.” That has brought utmost comfort to me as there have been many moments I don’t know what to lay down or what mask to take off. So take heart, the Lord is with us and for us. Just take a step.
As an Amazon Associate I earn a small commission at no extra charge to you from qualifying purchases.
The Road We Are On 