Our culture and society constantly tells us that everything is about our performance. How well we can execute this, or how quickly we can do that. Be efficient, work hard, and you won’t fail. Practice makes perfect. We strive for perfection because it gives us affirmation that we did well. That we succeeded.
The World Race is a challenging/exciting/terrifying/glorious thing. We have been on the field for one week and already God is wrecking our hearts and minds in the process of restoration and renewal. A struggle many of us are currently facing is the feeling of inadequacy.
This is all new to us. A new country, new culture, new definition of what Christianity looks like. We ask ourselves questions such as: Do we know enough scripture? Do our prayers sound eloquent and powerful? Are we doing enough?
The answer is no. No, because it doesn’t matter how many books I have read, how much theology I know, or how “well” I can pray. What matters is my willingness to opt in and step out into the hard things. What matter is my heart posture.
God does not base whether He will move in someone else’s life by my performance. I have already said “yes” to the World Race and all of the uncomfortable, new, and scary things that comes along with it. He is calling me deeper and asking me to step out. To set aside everything I know about performance and to fully place my trust in Him instead of myself and my own abilities.
Last night I put this concept into practice as we went out to do door to door ministry with a group of young adults from WYWAM. The WYWAM program puts participants through an extensive discipleship training program before sending them out in the field. Talk about feeling inadequate…
Despite this, I stepped out. When I spoke to or prayed with people, I shifted my focus off of me and my abilities and onto the Lord. I felt the biggest weight lifted off. I can be with people, love on people, and show people Jesus without the pressure to perform.
Our ministry host, John, shared something with me yesterday that spoke to my heart. He said that sometimes we may feel down and discouraged at our performance when doing ministry. Maybe our prayer with someone didn’t flow nicely or we we didn’t know what to say. Maybe the sermon we just preached was a disaster and it didn’t seem like anyone was connecting or paying attention.
God is still using those moments. Although it didn’t look or sound pretty to us, it still spoke to the one, two, or ten people who needed to hear it exactly in the way we delivered it. I think so easily we put God in a box. We try to understand Him fully. We like to think we know how He works and the ways He can and will use us. Such silly human beings we are. We serve a God who is creative, infinite, all-knowing, and magical.
I am learning to release God from the box I tend to limit Him to. I am excited to walk in the freedom from pressure to perform and to truly experience the Lord’s presence in my personal walk as well as with the team.
Continue to pray for my team and I as we are experiencing new and challenging things such as this. Thank you for the outpour of encouragement and love for us. South Africa is a beautiful place with beautiful people. I will post pictures in my next blog to give you a peek into life in Cape Town.
