“He must become greater; I must become less.” (John 3:30 NIV)
He > I
It’s a whole lot more than a catchy bumper sticker, it’s a lifestyle of surrender. It’s a continuous perspective we seek to maintain. Even seasoned Christians are susceptible to weight shift in this area. The problem is, whatever we look at becomes bigger. As long as we are looking at God, we do fine. It’s when we lower our eyes to lesser things that perspective warps out of proper proportion. When we look to ourselves, we get bigger.
Pain makes us bigger. What do I mean by that? Think about a stubbed toe: it throbs, it turns red, maybe it even swells up but it certainly grabs for your attention. The whole body’s focus turns toward that toe. What if the injury is bigger? If a whole body aches? Whether it’s actual physical injury or less visible emotional trauma; pain makes us bigger and we tend to make God smaller in it’s wake.
How do we counteract this phenomenon?
We keep looking at God. No matter how the pain screams for full attention, we intentionally keep it in proper perspective. It’s tough because pain is loud and close and God can feel far off and quiet. But remember, what we focus on fills our vision.
I suspect that maintaining proper perspective is a battle we’ll fight until our last breath. It’s helpful to consider the source of these words. John the Baptist was a man who abandoned civilization to follow the call of God. He lived off locusts and honey, he wore camel hair. He had subtracted himself as far as humanly possible and he’s the one who said “I’m not small enough.” We read his account and realize we still have a long ways to shrink before Jesus fills the pages of our story.
“This is the assigned moment for Him to move to the center, while I step to off the sidelines.” (John 3:30 MSG)
John stepped off the stage and handed Jesus his microphone, his ministry. For John, stepping into the shadows meant stepping toward death. Herod would have his head shortly. But isn’t that true for us, also? Aren’t we called to die to self?
It’s hard to send self to the sword when we are big and God is small. It’s a whole lot easier to be obedient to the unpleasant when self is shrunk down to appropriate size and God is given full domain over our existence.
We note that John was not unhappy about his handoff. Not in the least. The Message says his cup was running over, the NIV states his joy was complete. When we finally gain proper perspective of the largess of God and the smallness of us, we happily hand over the reins of our story.
Lord, we struggle for comfort and control. That’s why pain is such a problem for us, it fights for our attention. Help us the next time a wound grows large. Let us look to You. Come and shrink our pain down to proper size. May we arrive where John lived: happy to step aside and ready for You to dominate our story. Amen.