We suffer from poor I-sight.  Not eyesight, a matter of distorted vision that lenses can correct, but I-sight.  Poor I-sight blurs your view, not of the world, but of yourself.

Some see self too highly.  You wonder who puts the “air” in arrogance and the “vain” in vainglory?  Those who say, “I can do anything.”

You’ve said those words.  For a short time, at least.  A lifetime, perhaps.  We all plead guilty to some level of superiority.  And don’t we know the other extreme: “I can’t do anything”?

Forget the thin air of pomposity; these folks breathe the thick, swampy air of self-defeat.  Roaches have higher self-esteem. Earthworms stand taller.  “I’m a bum.  I am scum.  The world would be better off without me.”

Two extremes of poor I-sight.  Self-loving and self-loathing.  We swing from one side to the other.  One day too high on self, the next too hard on self.  Neither is correct.  Self-elevation and self- deprecation are equally inaccurate.  Where is the truth?

Smack-dab in the middle.  Dead center between “I can do anything” and “I can’t do anything” lies “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Phil. 4:13)

Neither omnipotent nor impotent, neither God’s MVP nor God’s mistake.  Not self-secure or insecure, but God-secure—a self-worth based in our identity as children of God.  The proper view of self is in the middle.

But how do we get there?  How do we park the pendulum in the center?

Worship.  Honest worship lifts eyes off self and sets them on God. Worship adjusts us, lowering the chin of the haughty, straightening the back of the burdened.

Breaking the bread, partaking of the cup. Bowing the knees, lifting the hands.
This is worship.

Worship properly positions the worshiper.  And oh how we need it!  We walk through life so bent out of shape.  So sold on ourselves that we think someone died and made us ruler.  Or so down on ourselves that we think everyone died and just left us.

Treat both conditions with worship.

From “Cure for the Common Life”
Copyright 2005, Max Lucado