The “US” Life by Kelly Gellert

There’s a familiar saying in the Christian world that I’ve come to dislike.  Often as an underlying theme, it says, “Less of me, more of You, God.”  It has such a holy ring to it and honestly, I agreed with it growing up in the church.  Exalting God is honourable and right.  He’s beyond deserving.  So where does the dislike come from?

Have you ever noticed that way back at the beginning of all things when God created the world, He kept pausing to observe His work and declare it was good?  Once the backdrop was installed and filled with creation and everything set in place, He crafted humankind in His own image (Gen 1:26-27).   I find it interesting that here is where God looks over everything and declares it to be VERY good (Gen 1:31).  It’s as if humans were the final touch, perfection reached when we were made, like we are His most prized part of creation.  And in that perfect space in time, before humans decided to try doing things their own way, God walked in the garden with them.  After they’d eaten the fruit they were told not to and realised their nakedness, Genesis 3:8 says they heard God walking in the garden and they hid from Him.  What follows is this brokenness between God and humans and this awful twist away from the original design. 

Beyond this vital turn point, the rest of the Bible is filled with a progression of our faithful, loving God making the way back into an Eden state not only possible but simple.  Jesus compassionately doing all the work for us.  On top of the main feature of Jesus making the way open for us through His death and resurrection, He also showed us how to live as a human in God’s presence, re-taught the Kingdom of God and showed us more of the Father.  Just reading through the four different accounts of Jesus’ earthly life, it’s easy to see that people and relationships were His main focus.  He was quite rebellious in His day and age for this reason, living from a heart where loving people trumps religious practice.  But all through the Bible you can see how God values relationship and seeks it.  You can see how special relationships between God and humans can be through people like Abraham, Moses, Joseph, David, Daniel and many more.  In a more panoramic view, the desire God shows Israel when He invites them into a marriage-like relationship, the jealousy and heartbreak He feels when they pursue other loves, the incredible loyalty and compassion He shows when He chooses to forgive and restore, pulling Israel back into His arms when they return in wretched tears is repeated over and over again right through the Old Testament.  Sadly on the part of humans and beautifully wondrous on the part of God.  It is also laced with the promise of the Messiah, one who will come and save them, bringing a permanent restoration.  The essence of the entire God-story is about relationship. 

Religion, in a general sense, has more of a master/servant notion.  A supreme being who must be worshipped or appeased, at least if you want their blessing or don’t want their vengeance.  On the lighter side, it’s transactional based.  Instructions followed.  Petitions made.  There’s a sense of business.  In John 15:15 though, Jesus says, quite astoundingly, “I call you friends.”  He shifts the narrative by naming us as friends.  Friends are people you share the deeper things with as well as the lighter things.  You spend time with them, laughing, having fun and just enjoy being together.  You ask them to do things for you, invite them to join you in work or adventures. You can rely on them to help you even when you haven’t asked for it and they remind us of what is good and true when we’re losing ourselves or our way.  Friends have influence over our hearts and lives.  It’s really quite radical to think that God calls us His friends.

In the years since really seeing the wonder of this I’ve been taking it more to heart and letting it shape my perspective.  I’ve grown up with God.  He’s always been a part of my life.  I’ve always talked my heart out to Him.  He’s been with me every moment.  Even when I side-lined Him, He graciously stepped aside but stayed nearby.  There were times during that part of my journey I really needed Him and He stepped in and helped me and then stepped back to the side until I invited Him back in properly.  He’s such a gentleman like that.  And when I’ve neglected Him, through busyness or distraction or apathy, and then finally turned my attention to Him, I’ve had such an unexpected sense of His delight and enthusiasm that I’m choosing to be there with Him.  In the moments my natural desire for a life partner pulls at my heart, I’ve begun to look at God and ask Him to hold that place for me.  Whatever the future holds, whether that includes a human life partner or not, I want Him to be the one I journey with.  Thinking things through and making decisions together.  Sharing our hearts and going on adventures together.  I want that partnership with Him.  And as I’ve mentioned, that’s what God seems to want too. 

It’s from this position that I look at the idea of “Less of me, more of Him” and it doesn’t feel right.  If what He’s wanting is more like a marriage relationship than less of one person and more of the other isn’t a balanced or healthy relationship.  God has been inviting me to work with Him to bring our relationship back into balance. He wants me to be just as much a part of this relationship as He is.  Granted we have different roles and bring different things as it’s reflected in human partnership, but the combining of our hearts make a wondrous whole.  We’re in this together.   In the process I’ve been asking what it looks like for ME to be in partnership with God.  What does the ‘us’ that is God and I look like?  I find this a fascinating question to ponder.  God loves the ‘us’ that we are where I bring all that I am and He brings all that He is.  Not less of me, more of Him.  Just…more of us.  More of the shape that we are becoming as He and I dwell together and move together.  True partnership.

The ‘us’ is the oneness mentioned in Genesis 2:24 where God’s design for marriage is two becoming one and also in John 17:21 where Jesus is praying for us all to be one with Him and with each other.  It’s a partnership that doesn’t lose our individual uniqueness but fulfils it.  Now, I have no experience with being married, but in thinking about that type of relationship, in the perfect ideal, each partner enhances the other.  You bring out the best of each other and help them be all they can be and in the process your hearts and lives merge.  The oneness gives each individual a greater sense of wholeness.  That’s why we start calling them our other half.  We are now more with them than we were on our own.  And perhaps that oneness can only truly take place if each partner brings their whole self and accepts the whole self of the other.  When I think of the relationship that God and I have in this form of partnership, it’s easy to see that God brings all of Himself and accepts all of me.  Even if that second part is a common struggle for many to receive.  But the oneness narrative says that God wants a partnership where I also bring all of me and accept all of Him. 

Giving all of oneself is a familiar idea in Christianity.  In Romans 12:1 Paul urges us to give ourselves to God as living sacrifices but with the lens of Jesus calling us friends and the oneness of intimate partnership, this sacrifice is of one that lets go of living for self and takes on living for and with another.  A commitment and loyalty to the ‘us’ that’s created when we join with God.  He’s already sacrificed all for us and so this is really just asking us to do the same for Him.  A partnership where He brings all of Him and I bring all of me.  We’re in this together, living a oneness that is uniquely us.

There is no metaphor that perfectly lines up with truth and all that it entails.  I mean, He is still God and I am still human, but the perspective shift that comes with understanding how much who I am is valued and wanted by Him invites me to live in a relationship that is alongside, like a partner or close friend.  He values who I am and what I bring so it’s not right to diminish myself for His sake.  As humble as it seems to push oneself back to the shadows so God can have the limelight, it’s often done with a sense of unworthiness.  And really that’s simply degrading to a beloved being that God purposefully and intricately designed and made, and loves to death and back.  Rather we get to stand alongside Him like an admiring lover who just wants people to see the beauty and wonder of their incredible partner.  It’s wild to realise He delights in boasting about us too.

The beauty of God in me is only truly seen when I am seen alongside God.  And the beauty of my design is only fully realised with the presence of God.  In John 10:10 Jesus states that He came to give us life to the full and perhaps that begins with embracing the ‘us’ life.  The restoration of the Eden-state where God and human dwell together in the freedom of how we are individually designed and sculpted.  The ‘more of us’ is a process of letting go of me living my own life where I’m the driving force and learning to operate from the partnership and freedom of ‘us’.  More teamwork, like a couple, where we realise our value and the input we each have.  More merging of hearts and lives where it’s hard to view one without the other. 

God wants the ‘us’ life—the beauty of who you are mixed with the wonder of all He is.  A life together, side by side. Oneness.  Perhaps the saying is better worded, less of me solo, more of us.  Or maybe just drop the solo part altogether and stick with “More of us, Lord.  More of us.”

What does the ‘us’ that is ‘God and you’ look like?

------------------

Sincerely,

Kelly Gellert