Today's 'thought' goes out to those who may be wrestling with fear. Fear of inadequacy, fear of failure, fear of being vulnerable, and even the common fear of those in ministry -- the fear of letting God down or not doing things in a fashion worthy of His glory (as inappropriate as such thinking can in many cases be).
This excerpt comes from Sheila Walsh and is found in
the little gem of a book entitled, "The Desert Experience."
In it she is extremely open, honest, and transparent. And as is typical of her writings, they are saturated with grace-filled insights. I offer it to any who might be dealing with a fear of their own profound sense of inadequacy. Enjoy.
"All I know is that I was slowly dying inside. I was lonely. I was afraid. I was unbearably sad. What added to my hopelessness was the fact that I had no idea what was wrong with me. I loved God. I enjoyed serving Him. I believed He loved me.
Some nights I would drive out of the gates of CBN and turn my car toward the ocean. I would park at the far end of the beach and get out and walk and walk for miles. I remember sitting on a sand dune, gripping my knees to my chest and groaning from a place too deep inside for me to understand. I decided that I was losing my mind.
My father had died in his thirties in a bleak psychiatric hospital in
Scotland. The legacy seemed to be imprinted on my soul, "Like father, like
daughter."
I remember sitting in Pat Robertson's office asking for a leave of
absence, telling him that I had been accepted as a patient in a psychiatric
unit in a hospital in Washington, D.C. I was filled with the shame that
is particular to those who struggle with mental illness...
My greatest fear growing up was that I would end up in a place like
my father. What I did not know then was that God had planned to deliver me
from myself in the ruins of my life. I did not understand then that some
of God's most precious gifts come in boxes that make your hands bleed when you
open them. Inside is what you have been longing for all your life. Only His
love could do that. Only God would do that. Only His love is as fierce and
relentless as our deepest pain, our unspoken fears. We become accustomed to
simply surviving. God wants more...
There are doors in our lives we have locked so tight, we are convinced
that if we were to open them we would be consumed by what is inside. We would
be left alone. But that's the whole, glorious point: We are not alone. I
discovered that on that rainy night in October of 1992 when I checked into the
hospital. I thought I checked in alone. I wanted to check in alone. But Christ
checked in with me. He sat with me, all night, on the floor....
As the days turned into a week, then two weeks, what I discovered was a
group of people very much like myself. They were people who loved God but
didn't have all the answers. They were people who were struggling to come to
terms with their humanity lived out in imperfect obedience. A pastor who had
nothing left to say to his people. A teacher who had lost hope in the
future, whose futility had rendered her impotent to give anything at all to her
students. A young girl whose only perceived area of control was to starve
herself; the success of her rebellion was killing her. And me... as deep as the
marrow of my bones I felt unloved and unlovable... Was I so afraid of my 'not
good enoughness' that I kept God's perfect love standing as the front door? It
would have been easier if I'd had some terrible sin to confess, what we
consider with our skewed human sight to be one of the 'big ones.' But all I had
was me and a sense that I was not enough.
And I was right.
That was the bad news and the good news rolled into one spectacular
gift. I wasn't enough. Even in all my supposed best moments I wasn't enough and
never would be. But that's the point. Christ is enough. He loved me completely,
shadows and all.
That hit me one morning as I sat with several of the patients and nurses
in a small church. It wasn't a remarkable service or a particularly new sermon
topic, but I was raw and open; my defenses were down. And deep in my soul I
heard and I believed: 'You are loved. You are loved. You are loved.' I wept the
exhausted tears of one who had been wandering alone in the desert for years and
finally catches sight of the way home. There was no quick fix or dramatic
rescue, just the relief of finding Christ, the Way...
I had based most of my Christian life on all the things I could do for
God. Now I had nothing. I was empty-handed. I was like a newborn child learning
how to live. I was living a divine paradox. I had never felt less worthy and
yet more loved. I had never been so disenfranchised yet more welcomed by the
Father. I began to realize I had spent most of my life trying to make God glad
He chose me. I had run myself into the ground because I wanted to be
invaluable. Now there was nothing good left to say about myself, and even if
there had been I was too tired to say it.
There seems to be something that the desert experience alone can gift us
with. Perhaps it's because there are no distractions. Perhaps it's the very
aloneness, the silence, that makes us finally listen to all the rumblings in
our souls. Now I think 'How kind of God to let all my greatest fears happen
rather than simply to remove them.' I longed for a rescue; He gave me a
relationship. I wanted deliverance; He gave me companionship in the ruins. If
He had simply removed my fears I would have lived the rest of my life dreading
their return. To let them happen and sit with me, bloodied and bruised, was the
most precious gift of love...
A girl was sitting on a bus reading [a book which included a chapter on
grace]. The man beside her asked: 'What's grace.' 'I don't know. I
haven't gotten that far.' That was me. I knew it was in the book, I just
hadn't gotten to it yet. Grace is impossible to grasp outside of the framework
of the love of God. It makes no sense. It's as Lewis Smedes described in his
book 'Shame and Grace' -- 'The gift of being declared worthy before we
become worthy.' What a gift, but how contrary to how we live our lives in
this world, in the church, where proving yourself is everything.
At the moment I began to grasp hold of grace, I was as the prodigal son
with his well-rehearsed speech drowned out by the love of his father.
There is no quid pro quo with God. We have nothing to give, nothing to barter
with. He has and is everything. I now believe that God delights to use those of
us who have had our hearts and wills broken in the desert... The desert
leaves you with the absolute conviction that there is nothing you can do
to make God love you and nothing you can do to negate that love. You are left
with the liberating awareness that all we are in our best moments are earthen
vessels to contain the grace and glory of God."
She shares much more, and its all very good and helpful, but if you
desire to read that you will need to pick up a copy of the book, which also
includes stories by other well-known Christians who have gone through
difficult times in the 'desert' (J. I. Packer, John Trent, Charles Stanley,
John Maxwell, Jill Briscoe, etc.).
I will end with one last quote from Shelia that I also have found
true in ministry. It is worth much consideration in itself: "The
amazing thing was that my brokenness was far greater bridge to others than my
apparent wholeness had ever been." How true. How true.
In the Grip of His Grace, Pastor Jeff
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