Okay, so continuing on from where we left off, I am walking side-by-side with Jesus through my fear of failing. And He is by all means speaking (through scripture, through books, through my teammates and through a couple of solid talks.) So what is He saying exactly?
Well, a couple of things. Last month my teammates spoke truth into my life during a time where we sat down to do that very thing with one another. They all spoke against all the lies the enemy has been whispering since this whole race got off the ground and running. It was good. Really, really good.
Also, I've listened to the talk "True Faced" by John Lynch a number of times before the race, and a number of times since we left in October. In it, he talks about grace…about what it means for us, practically, and how it's so easy to miss. He does a great job of discussing the idea that trusting God pleases Him more than us setting out to please Him, and proving ourselves. It's wonderful stuff. (The talk is based on his book by the same name…worth checking out.) Anyway, so God has been using that to just help "sink in" the idea that I can't out-perform His grace..no matter how hard I try.
Another way He spoke was through something Bill Hendricks writes in his book Exit Interviews (which I haven't read at all, but saw it quoted in a book I am reading) in regards to the burden we can sometimes carry in living the Christian life…
"Add it all up, and it's a crushing burden–absolutely staggering!
Yet never have people ben less able to live up to those expectations, biblically, based though they may be. For one thing, we are not a morally or spiritually robust generation. It's not that we wouldn't love to live up to the high ideals with which we're challenged. But the fact is, we can't. They are so high and so many, and we are not only weak but in many cases wounded as well.
The standard response to this fact is that, of course, we're weak as human beings, but with Christ's strength we can do 'all things.' With all due respect to that point of view, let me state plainly that it's not going to happen that way. People are not going to become super-saints. They're going to live less than ideal lives, and lots of times they're going to fail. They're certainly not going to live up to anywhere near the heightened expectations of well intentioned Christian teaching."
Now I don't know exactly what to make of all that. I'm sort of just wading through all of this. Weighing it out. Regardless…there is relief to be found in what Hendricks writes…even if it's the fact that I'm not alone in struggling and struggling to live up to expectations that seem perpetually out of reach, no matter how much or how hard I strive towards them.
God has also led me down a path of realization that a big part of seeing myself as a failure comes from comparison, a connection I didn't even make until a few days ago. As I read about men of faith that have gone before me, men from centuries and generations past, I tend to only have a partial picture of their passion for more of Christ. I read about how they fast for days, pray on their knees for hours upon hours or how they are forever restless until God provides breakthrough for them. What I don't see are their struggles. I don't see their day-to-day lives. I read about the great parts, where God moved, and assume that they were near perfect in how they walked with God, and compared to that, I don't come anywhere close.
Therein lies the problem. Not that I'm comparing myself to stories I only partially know, but that I'm comparing myself at all. I'm not those men. I'm a separate creation, distinct and unique. God has created a path for He and I to walk, and though I can learn from those who have gone before me, my path will be different. I need to embrace that. (The same go for this World Race…I don't need to worry if our team is doing "as well" as other racers have done…because this year is the year Christ would have us go on The Race, and it will look distinct, unique, just like our individual lives.)
One major point of insight God spoke was through my teammate Nikki who said in response to my sharing this with the team, "You know those men you want to be like? Well, to these kids, you are that man."
Basically this jolted me out of such an inward-focus that blinded me to anything else. Wallowing in thinking of myself in such poor light blinded me to the fact that Jesus was using me to share His infinite, heavenly love with the eight kids I live with this month. It blinded me to the fact that His love has infinite power, and that it isn't for me to know the impact it has in their lives…it is only for me to share. And I could spin my wheels for days and months and years, working myself into a frenzy wondering if it was all enough. When, at the core it…I'm called to simply be obedient in two things: To love God and love others. And to leave the results of it all up to Him, believing, in faith that He will do more through that than I believe possible.
So I am now presented with a choice I think, at the end of all this. (And again, I'm not coming to any final conclusions, and theological answers or anything so profound. I am simply experiencing, thinking, wrestling, while hoping to be moving forward with God. That is the process that's happening, and it most definitely is a process.) The choice:
To be obedient with joy, walking in faith with great freedom. Or. To try and be the greatest Christian who has ever lived, making as few mistakes as possible, and going through life trying to show God that I "really get it". And in so doing, live in a virtual prison.
That is the choice. And when presented
that way, it's clear to me which road to take. I will be one who walks in faith, who believes what Jesus says is true and good. It is that simple. Yet, I am constantly astonished that simplicity is in no way connected with how easy a thing is.
