I hate making mistakes. One of the characteristics of my personality type is that I am plagued by a "haunting sense of impending failure" and am prone to "spend considerable time second-guessing" myself (via Typelogic). So when I make a mistake, I know it immediately and wonder how long it's going to take the conference to fire me.
The last couple of weeks have felt like one screw-up after another on my part. I feel them as a hollow fear in my stomach that drives me to alternately escape or work harder than before. Those days sometimes have me contemplating leaving the ministry altogether--the ultimate act of second guessing.
What I try to do at these times is ground myself in a second-opinion, because too much second guessing leads (counterintuitively) to less objectivity. My Senior Pastor, mentor, is a great source of encouragement. But when I feel like a total failure I start to think that even he's feeding me a line.
So then I go to God. I tell Him that if he wants me to quit my job because I'm too incompetent, all He needs to do is tell me. I'm leaving the choice up to Him, after all, He's the one who got me into this business.
He hasn't told me that yet....I feel a lot happier today.
isn't it funny how quickly god puts things into perspective?
ReplyDeleteand isn't it funnier how slow we are to actually go to god with our problems?
I'm glad god's told you to stay put :)
i have thought about quitting youth work twice because of problems with myself and others. But God always reminds me that He has worked through worse people than me.
ReplyDeletePatriarchs & Prophets, page 238
"Men whom God favored, and to whom He entrusted great responsibilities, were sometimes overcome by temptation and committed sin, even as we at the present day strive, waver, and frequently fall into error. Their lives, with all their faults and follies, are open before us, both for our encouragement and warning. If they had been represented as without fault, we, with our sinful nature, might despair at our own mistakes and failures. But seeing where others struggled through discouragements like our own, where they fell under temptations as we have done, and yet took heart again and conquered through the grace of God, we are encouraged in our striving after righteousness. As they, though sometimes beaten back, recovered their ground, and were blessed of God, so we too may be overcomers in the strength of Jesus."
I sometimes wonder what if you never felt like you made a mistake? We definitely can take it too far, but our knoweldge of our own mistakes is a gift from God. Just think of how big a wrech you would be if you coudln't even realize your own mistakes....
ReplyDeleteFurther, what if we never made a mistake? Andre' Crouch wrote, "If I never had a problem, I wouldn't know that God could solve them, I wouldn't know what faith in God's word could do."
Mistakes are not God's ideal, but without them we wouldn't be able to see God squeeze juice out of that lemon we gave God. We woudnl't be able to see God again make something out of nothing...We woudln't be able to see again God pull good even out of our biggest blunders...
I feel like preaching up in here...