The Way of Release
by Norman Grubb

"Let him who boasts boast in the Lord"–1 Corin. 1:31

I am to cease to look for improvements in myself, or to center my attention around what I feel or don’t feel, whether I am this or have that, why I fail in this or an defeated in that—the whole outlook on life which fixes my attention on myself and my reactions or my adequacies or inadequacies.

The most illuminating illustration I found in the Bible was the several times we are called "vessels," because a vessel, a cup, a vase, a can, is strictly limited to one function only. It only exists to be a container; it can be nothing else. And here was this simple though humbling, illustration of my relation as a human to God. I only exist to contain Him.

This transferred my attention from worrying about myself as not being this, or being that. Leave myself alone. I am just the container. In place of this, I had it clearly that I was containing a totally exclusive Person who does not give me something but is all; and I don’t contain Him in a relationship in which He imparts various gifts and graces to me, but I am just a means by which He can be Himself in a human container. This means that my main function in life changes from activity to receptivity.

–From The Spontaneous You