Feeling Good/Feeling Bad...or All About God?

I have been saying (and praying) for years for God to be first in my life, in prayer and in action.  I know that God has put this desire in my heart and brought me a long way on the journey that never ends.  But I have been struggling for quite some time now (or many years, but only fairly recently has God been drawing my attention to it) with a flip-flopping that I am not happy about.

There have been many times in the past, when my spiritual life has been particularly intense, that sometimes I back off from intimacy with God (but God always draws me back...eventually). Lately God has been bringing to my awareness something that has been going on for a long time.  When I feel most available to and "used by" God in prayer or in spiritual direction or in helping someone do something or in posting a blog or any other action that I feel good about, then I back off, distance myself from others and even from God, and certainly from feeling good about what has occurred, sometimes even sabotaging the delight/pleasure of the moment to the detriment of my health and/or sense of wholeness.

It feels to me as if my "old self image" (of being broken by abuse) is determined to cancel out who I know God has been creating me to be, my “new self in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:17). I believe this is a cleansing of the old self image(s), and I do have a deep sense of God working even in the sabotaging. And as I look back over many years of spiritual journey and healing, I see how God has worked even in the lowest places of my life, including destructive behaviors and much sabotaging. So I can only pray for God continue drawing me into being free/available for service as and when God pleases. I know I cannot even make willingness happen, only pray for and respond when I have it, and pray and be gentle with myself when I don't.

And as I have been writing this, I have realized that "feeling good" about something God has done is my ego judging, just as much as is feeling bad about distancing behaviors. I want my life to be all about God instead of "all about me." I know that because I am human (and definitely not my Creator!), I will never “do it” (spiritual life, housework, blogging, service, or anything else) to my perfectionist standards.  Letting go of perfectionism and of constantly evaluating/judging what is good or bad is a long process, very freeing, but even that is not in my power to make happen.  And accepting that, as offensive to my ego as that is, is also something with which I need God’s help.  I surrender, God!