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Getting Out of My Own Way
“He must increase, but I must decrease.”
John 3:30, NRSV
These words of John the Baptist irritate me. They nag at me from the back of my mind. They scold me when I’m too bossy, when I’m a know-it-all. They are an affront to my self-actualization, my secret pride.
John’s followers are jealous of Christ’s ministry. John replies that he is not the bridegroom; he’s the best man. His joy is joy in another’s success. He knows his ministry is coming to an end. Christ’s ministry is ascending; his is in decline. John resists the urge to “stay too long in the job.” He knows when to step down. If even John the Baptist felt the need to decrease his own sense of self, how much more must I? There is so much of me that needs to decrease.
I write this by way of an introduction. I am honored to write for the Daily Word. My wife, Abby, and two daughters, Maeve and Carys, have long been Parishioners of St. Martins. I am a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Houston Christian University. I believe the arts have a vital role to play in the Church. Currently, I lead a writing workshop at St. Martins and am writing poems for Riverway’s Keeping the Kalendar series. I want to contribute, to create and to lead.
But what might John the Baptist’s words mean in my life? Where do I need, as the saying goes, to “let go and let God?” Is it in taking a brief minute to pray after commuting through Houston traffic before I go inside to dinner? Is it in praying to bring my own frustrations from the day to my Father, not into my home or to my family? Is it in giving God thanks when something good happens, a promotion at work, a windfall in the market, a child pulling up her grades, to remind me I didn’t do this on my own? Are John’s words a call to get out of my own way?
“He must increase, but I must decrease”: hard words for those of us who want to seem successful. Hard words for those of us who need to achieve and to control. My youngest daughter was very sick at birth. Father R.J. Heijman, our former priest, baptized her in the sink of the NICU before a surgery she was not expected to survive. He just happened to be visiting those in hospitals that day — Providence!
Learning to decrease meant learning to trust in God. It meant learning that no matter how hard I pushed doctors, how deeply I studied medical journals, how thoroughly I researched specialists, or how obsessively I scoured the internet for an answer, I could not heal my daughter. My only option: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” I look forward to writing for the ministry of the Daily Word. May God help me to get out of my own way.
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