A Quenched Fear of My Own Inadequacies
Since the day 1 of training camp, I can turn my head to the left and you can see on my neck sketched in brown marker the word “inadequacies”. During a small excerise, we were asked to find a partner of whom we would share our current struggle. I turned to Johnny and I explained to him that I felt unprepared, inferior and scared that I could not spiritually measure up to these other 35 racers. Thats when he took the brown marker and wrote “inadequacies” in the most vulnerable place – where everyone else could see, on the side of my neck. I was used to admitting that I felt inadequate, but not used to that lowsy feeling being squashed so quickly…
For the next three days, we had an amazing speaker, Dr. Ron Walborn. All 35 of us would sit on the second floor of AIM’s office, a gigantic unfinished attic, and listen to Ron speak. He started by teaching me that I have an Experiential Instinct – described by “feeling” God’s presence, ready to worship, enjoys intimacy with God, relates best to the experience. Just understanding that small detail allowed me to fully experiencee the Holy Spirit like never before. Because I understood, I allowed the Holy Spirit to follow His plan, not my own. It literally felt like the Holy Spirit was pouring into me waves of truth filled with adequacy and meaning, a sense of importance in the Kingdom of God.
But it was when he explained one concept that brought me to the core of my fear of inadequacies – Bounded Set vs. Centered Set. In lamens terms, “what you think you have to be in order to gain the acceptance of others in the church” vs. “what you must do in order to gain the Lord’s acceptance”. Bounded set can be described as following the norms, “do these things and you’ll be ok”, all about appearance and behavior, no negativity – all smiles, a perfect face for others to see. I can completely relate to this! This is what I feel I have to be for everyone. But, I found my self feeling that I was not good enough, tired and useless. I viewed others as competition, more adequate vessels, superior. And I viewed God as a “task master”, the Punisher, distant and non relational. He quickly turned this around to explain that we are called to live in a Centerd Set relationship with the Lord, where truth is everything, all focus is on Jesus, no matter how long it takes, as long as their is movement towards the prize, and most importantly, it is about the PROCESS, not the GOAL.
YES! I began to understand now… I am in a process that holds all the importance, significance and security. It is not that I have to be at the “end” to experience these things. The time is NOW – now is when I have a purpose, now is when I move forward in God’s presence and now is when He is calling me the most to be myself and be real, no matter where I am in knowledge, onenness or experience.
What a relief… I am not as inadequate as I thought. We all have struggles, fear of the unknown, misunderstandings and fall short here and there of the norms. But He is telling me that I have not fallen short, that I am right where He has placed me, with a strong purpose and fully capable of glorifying Him.
Praise God for allowing me to be imperfect.
Praise God for giving me His grace.
Praise God for providing me with a purpose that will glorify Him.
Praise God for all of my inadequacies, because they are what He will use in His perfect plan!
