Answering the context of this question in a recent interview, Tim Keller affirms that the only solution from “self-absorption,” is absorption with the truth of the Gospel, Christ-absorption!

Q: How did you overcome your “painful introversion”? Are you saying, how did an introvert get to be a megachurch pastor in Manhattan? Very gradually. It is a combination: God called me to be a minister and then decided to prosper my ministry more than a lot of other people’s, which was always a surprise. I do not know why. It is not false modesty. I am still not sure why.

Q: Gift and grace? The gift side of it is that God continues to send me people who seem to be helped by the ministry. That overcomes some of your lack of confidence, but the danger of relying on your gifts, saying, “Hey, I am a pretty good preacher, people will come back to listen to me,” is that that leads to the opposite of an inferiority complex, a superiority complex, which is probably more deadly. They are both self-absorption.

Q: How do you fight that? As I moved from feeling like nobody likes me to everybody likes me—then you get really famous and nobody likes you again—I had to work on the gospel a lot in my heart. Every time I started to get too big a head, something would come along and God would bring me down. This is the way I think everybody grows. Something would bring me down and I would have to use the gospel to shore up my confidence on the basis of His grace rather than on my gifts. — [Emphasis Mine]

We will only truly find ourselves, when we completely lose ourselves in Him!

Get into the Gospel, and let the Gospel work its way Right Through You!

To read more from “the Cardiologist,” and the excerpts from an interview where this was sourced from… Go HERE!

For the Fame of His Name

Man of Spin

H/T: Steve McCoy on Twitter