Being here at debrief we’ve been doing a lot of remembering the last 6 months and what the Lord has done in and through us. It got me thinking, what really has happened to me the last 6 months?
For years I have struggled with this nasty thing called “comparison.”
Oye. Its a killer.
Unfortunately it doesn’t just go away though.
It goes all the way back to training camp, I walked into those 10 days in Georgia with the belief that everyone was going to be these perfect Christians that know the bible really well and never sin.
Ha! I laugh at it now but its a real belief I think more of us had than not.
Stepping into launch though it was still there. There was this belief that I had to feel a certain way and look a certain way.
Month one in Serbia I literally woke up at 4:00am everyday to spend time with Jesus (never a bad thing and I loved that time) but I put myself into this box that I had to do all the extremes to be close to Jesus.
I believed I had to be able to hear the Lord’s voice so clearly.
I believed I had to be able to say yes to everything.
I believed I had to be more than I was.
As time went on I relaxed about some things but I still had these beliefs that I had to do more than I actually could do.
As a team treasurer for the first 4 months of the race I believed I had to be the best treasurer there ever was including making sure I saved us a ton of money, we ate really well and still got to go out to a meal every once in awhile.
Again, not a bad thing at all but it killed me when I couldn’t be better. I put chains on myself.
When we had team changes and I stepped into the role of team leader I believed I had to be the best there was. Again.
I believed I had to have all the answers, that I had to want to do everything with my team all the time, that I had to be really intentional in every conversation I had and that I had to be everyone’s friend.
Do you know how hard it is to be friends with people when your trying to force community and friendship? When you put all of these pressures on it?
Its nearly impossible and it leaves you feeling even more annoyed and alone than before. At least for me it does.
I had spent nearly 5 months struggling with the belief that I was never enough.
In Botswana the term identity kept coming up. I had no clue why because I thought I knew who I was and was pretty confident in it.
That is, until the Lord showed me that I had spent 5 months trying to be more than I actually was and I wasn’t allowing myself the freedom to be me.
I’ve got good news for y’all.
God made you to be you. He didn’t make you to be your best friend or to be your older sister or to be your boss. He made you as you because you have something that no one else in the world has and if you aren’t living as yourself, your robbing the world of the uniqueness of you.
I had a good friend once say, “I love meeting people because God put a little piece of himself in every person but its all different so when you meet new people your really just meeting a bunch of little parts of God that you wouldn’t meet otherwise.”
So guess what, you are freaking free. Be you and be the best darn you that anybody could be.
