Recently I read a book entitled What Was I Thinking: Things I’ve Learned Since I Knew It All
In it Steve Brown tells of a person who stood up in front of a group of people who, in his words, “clearly didn’t want him there.” At one point the speaker, quite sincerely said, “I love you” and someone shouted from the back of the auditorium, “Yeah, what do you want from us?”
Can you handle a confession? I sometimes shout that out in frustration to God, “What do you want from me?”
In the story told by Steve Brown the speaker responds to the heckler with the following words, “I don’t want anything from you, I have everything I need”
Wow… wish that were me… I mean, I wish I could say that with integrity.
Sometimes I feel it… most times, not.
God has gently been journeying me through a season of healing.
It centres on that part of my brokenness rooted in a sense of inadequacy. A sense that has pervaded and affected my ministry, my relationships, my choices for years. A deep rooted fear that I am not good enough, holy enough, smart enough, capable enough, leader enough, shepherd enough…. Enough, enough…
I stood and confessed my brokenness to my congregation recently. I asked their forgiveness for the times that I had served out of my brokenness. Forgiveness for the times I had served, worked, ministered in a way that would make me more likeable… acceptable… good enough…
Honestly, I think some of them would have preferred if I had been confessing some more blatant, concrete sin like stealing money from the offering, or getting drunk off communion juice. Somehow it wasn’t enough to confess that I struggle to believe what God says to be true …
He loves me anyway…
Of course it is true that I am not good enough… but it’s also true that I am enough. I don’t need to possess, have, bring, carry or hold anything more than that which I have and am in order for Jesus to lean in and touch me.
That’s a convoluted sentence but it works …and gives me such joy!
I don’t need to be better to feel His embrace or hear His gentle call…
In my weakness He is strong… and weakness I have!
…just sayin’