Self-doubt darkens our minds so that we can't see the remarkable persons we are. Self-doubt cripples our souls so that we limp along when we could run doing great things for God. Self-doubt weakens our hearts so their doors won't stay open to welcome love.
What self-doubt is really insidiously whispering to us is "Don't trust your relationship with God. You only THINK you know what God is inspiring you to be and say and do. Look at yourself! You're never going to be that sort of person!" But that is a false understanding of ourselves; it's the work of fearful self-doubt impeding the mighty work of the Holy Spirit in us.
To overcome self-doubt, we have to believe and trust in the God of NOW.
"NOW is the acceptable time! NOW is the day of salvation!" We hear those words on Ash Wednesday as a trumpet call to trust enough in God and trust enough in ourselves to take that step forward NOW - the minute God asks us to move and change and become who we really are.
St. Teresa of Avila, a Carmelite nun, experienced one of those defining God-moments when God asked her to step forward - NOW. She was a practical, no-nonsense woman who turned her nose up at her fellow nuns who had deep, personal relationships with Jesus. She declared "God dwells among the pots and pans." But God knew the greatness in Teresa and was already laying siege to her heart to break it open with love for Him.
One day Teresa was bustling through the convent halls when she noticed a statue of Christ propped against a wall; she bent to pick it up to put it away and her eye caught His. This was the Now moment God offered her: would she turn her gaze away from the Crucified Christ, or meet His eyes and be transformed forever? She took the spiritual step forward, returned His gaze, and saw Him for the first time in her life.
"Christ's face radiated unbearable suffering and unconditional love. Even as his back was bent and scored with lacerations, the blood dripping into his eyes from the thorns that pierced his scalp, he gazed at Teresa with a tenderness that felt absolutely personal and offered her his undivided attention. Never had she felt so fully seen. Never had she imagined herself worthy of such a love as he was pouring upon her.
"Teresa's knees buckled and she slid to the floor at his carved feet. Then she kept going. She unfolded her body in full prostration, pressing her face to the ground, arms stretched above her. Her heart overflowed and she began to cry. She cried tears of longing and tears of fulfillment. She wept with remorse for never having loved Christ as he deserved to be loved, and she wept with supplication that he never, ever leave her.... Teresa lay weeping for a long time. When she was spent, she rose, transfigured." (Mirabai Starr, in "God of Love.") Now she was ready to become the great mystic, visionary, and reformer of the Carmelite Order, and a Doctor of the Church.
A NOW moment with God can sometimes be offered for no more than a moment. What if, quite simply, Teresa had refused to look into Christ's eyes? What if she had said to herself that she was imagining this, that God couldn't possibly be communicating with her? That she wasn't good enough, holy enough, intelligent enough, or even really interested or strong enough, to be swept away by such overpowering Love?
A NOW moment with God can be a call from Him that we resist for years, turning away from His burning gaze in our souls. We tell ourselves that we're too young or too old, too set in our ways or too free-spirited, too undisciplined, or too practical. But God waits and the world waits for us to be true to ourselves and allow Him to ignite us. St. Catherine of Siena says "Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire."
I'm not talking "delusions of grandeur" here. If each of us would grow into the brave Light on a Hilltop whom we really are, our lives would ignite everyone around us in a forest fire of love eventually igniting the entire world, even reaching throughout the Universe. We must never, ever underestimate what one life like ours can do when God is the creative Builder Who is creating the Final Masterpiece of His Kingdom.
We sometimes think of Jesus as only coming back to us at the Last Judgement. Not true. Jesus is always and everywhere coming to each one of us, meeting us in this moment: NOW. In this person. That situation. This grief. This love. This job. This life challenge. Will we turn away from His face? Or will we overcome our fears and self-doubt and look into the gaze meant to break open our hearts and transform us?
NOW is the acceptable time. NOW is the day of salvation.