For: The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St.Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt
Exploring the Nature of Human Beings:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Nelson Mandela
To be fully alive means embracing all of who we truly are, and using our energy to further that quest. To know ourselves is to know the greatness that God has placed in us. We are in His image, and therefore meant for greatness in our lives. I don’t mean great in the way of fame or perfection, but in the way of “unusually large in size or dimension”1 as the dictionary states.
Jesus says he came so that we could have life, and have it more abundantly.2 What does that mean to us? Many of us live day to day working at jobs we don’t enjoy, in marriages we may or may not be happy in, doing hobbies to keep ourselves busy either so we don’t have to think about our unsatisfied (and sometimes miserable) state, or so that we can have some small piece of the greater joy that we don’t even realize is available to us.
That is not life. That is existing. Why settle for merely existing when we can be fulfilled and joyous in life, have peace and wonder, be creative in deed and influence?
That is the life I desire. And that is the life Jesus wants to be abundant. Abounding in his glory. Abounding in the fullness of his attributes and nature.
So how do we find the attributes that God has placed in us that reflect him most definitely? We can begin by recognizing very simply what brings us joy. Is it teaching a child a song? Training for a race? Writing? Helping a friend move? Helping them cope? These desires are the gifts God has inherently placed in us. For so long the church has called these things “unspiritual” because they only have an “earthly” value. But we are human beings who live in flesh on the earth and also overlap with heaven,3 and therefore all gifts are spiritual and physical. We also recognize now that being made in God’s image gives his value to these gifts in us.
In the midst of this recognition we must be careful not to build ourselves up so much that we fail to remember it is God that is the initiator of the gift.4 It is his to give, and after all, his image that is imprinted on us in the existence of the gift. I think the most effective way to keep a healthy mindset when pursuing greatness in any area is the attachment and giving of ones self to community.
I know community is a trendy word right now, so I will explain how I view it. Community is a group of friends. Friends who love each other, who are willing to listen to and walk through the beautiful and ugly places of each other’s lives together, to live out the mundane and the exhilarating times together. When people love each other like this, honesty and vulnerability are possible. And there growth is also possible. These are the people that know one another well enough to cheer each other on when they are growing and achieving true greatness, but are not afraid to speak caution and address sin issues at the same time.
There is no fear in love.5
In a community such as this, we find accountability in a very healthy way. In this place as we pursue greatness and give our best to grow in what God has given us (and pursue God in this process) we have the checks and balances necessary that come from trusted sources.
To grow, to become more Christ-like, and thereby more fully human, there is no room to shy away from our gifts. We cannot be afraid of how it will make us look or seem to others. If we have something to offer, and we do, then we must be obedient and live out the glory of God that is in us. As the above quote states, “we were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us”.
Let’s live fully. Let’s passionately love life and it’s greatness. And let’s love each other in the midst of this, in true community that the Trinity itself models for us. Giving permission to be great in each of our unique gifts and callings.
Let us become alive!
“When you gaze in love and gratitude at the God in whose image you wre made, you do indeed grow. You discover what it means to be fully alive.”6
1 greatness. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/greatness (accessed: July 16, 2008).
2 John 10:10, the Bible, NKJV
3 Tom Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense, (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2006), 63
4 Ed Gentry, Podcast: Two Brothers on Righteousness
5 1 John 4:18, the Bible, NKJV
6 Tom Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense, (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2006), 148
Crystal, thanks for the Mandela quote-that’s one of my favorite quotes of all time. I like how you combined being fully alive and community in this post. I don’t that either can exist fully without the other. We need community to help us become alive and we need to be more and more ourselves in order to benefit the community.
I agree about the Mandela quote being a favourite.
Crystal, the quote sits so well with the theme of being fulyl human, along with all you have amplified about finding what brings us joy. You have delightfully kept that integrated with community and growing together in that discovery.
What good is finding joy if it can’t be shared? Thanks for such a ‘fully alive’ post!
Great work here, Crystal. Strong and important in every way. Could it be that this is what is meant in the Psalms when God says, “have I not said, you are gods….”
It seems strange and out of place, but is a declaration not of the deity of human beings, but of the greatness of the nature of His imagebearers.
If the garden had remained unscathed, can we begin to imagine our shared life on this good earth?