Self awareness is a God thing.

“Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other.” – John Calvin

Self awareness and God awareness are linked together, however they are not the same thing. God and humanity are different from each other and the pathway to God is not found through exploring oneself. The reason they are so strongly linked is because when we “come to the end of our rope” “recognize the true depths of our own depravity and mortality,” we can then finally reflect on who He is and who we are not.

Self awareness can have a positive or negative impact on our relationships. If we walk around with blinders on, unable to see our characteristics at play, then we become hard and live for no other reason than our own selfish desires. We become our own God when we are the object of our own pursuits. This unfortunately is the unintended result of our emphasis on “community” and “authenticity.” We just become people who justify sin and our shortcomings because they are known and acknowledged by others. We no longer feel conviction about this stuff in our lives that has yet to be fully claimed by the gospel because our struggles are common and even understandable. However, like other parts of our lives there is a certain kind of maturity to our self awareness that happens as we grow in Christ

Part of self awareness is knowing that we are in fact, good at things. But the other side of that coin is being aware that even when we are doing something that seems to be pretty selfless in the moment, our motives are still tainted with vain conceit and self- indulgence. We serve but we want to be acknowledged for our service. We give but we feel slighted when we aren’t recognized for what we’ve done.

As we learn who God is and by his grace hopefully we are moving in the direction where we know ourselves more and yet think ourselves less- M. Kelley