Perfection verses Failure

God is not in the business of picking the right man for a job, but instead, is in the business of taking the one who seems unfit and molds him into the man he is destined to be.  How can we understand the mindset of a God who overlooks the perfect candidate and chooses to focus His eyes on the inexperienced, loser, runt and the… unqualified?

At the age of 7, I found myself battling a number of insecurities as I was facing the recent awakening of my sexuality from months of being molested.  My perception of life and of how things should be, was not that of an average seven year old.  I realized this more when I became friends with a girl who was, in my definition, perfect in every way.  She went to church in her Sunday best with both of her God-fearing parents and siblings.  She exercised manners that I had never seen before and was very talented.  If there was a solos or vocal part for the choir, her or her sister was almost always picked.   I wasn’t jealous of her, but I admired her ways, success and growing reputation.  In fact being around her, it became obvious to me that I had a number of shortcomings.  I realized that I could never be like her, but I was definitely going to try.

I remember the day I decided I was going to give this “Give your heart to God” thing a try.  I was going to walk that perfect road and live the sinless life with God at my side.  I was 9 years old when, at a church service, the pastor gave his normal call to salvation at the end of his preaching.  There were a few people who raised their hands and I made the choice to raise mine.  One main reason I did this was because I heard that as a prize for raising your hand, you received a nice shiny new bible.  I didn’t understand why everyone didn’t do it.  No questions asked, you raise your hand and that’s it—how easy was that?  So I did it, but then I was instructed by someone to go up to the altar.  Others who lifted their hands were told to come down as well.   After they prayed for me I was then brought to the side of the sanctuary where they asked me more questions, I wasn’t expecting that at all.  I was intimidated, but I wanted to be like my friend, so I listened and agreed to whatever they said and as a reward I was given a beautiful maroon hard covered King James Bible.

Being Authentically Fake

When I went home, I immediately planned out this new life of salvation, with a list of things I was going to do different.  1.  No more cussing.  2. No more showing boys my two fingers when I got upset.  3. No more of those inappropriate thoughts I had that no one else knew about and most of all  4. NO MORE HITTING PEOPLE!  That was going to be hard.  My friend that I looked up to, had never gotten into a fist fight before, so I knew that needed to change for sure.   I was going to read my Bible until the pages were falling out like hers.  (She was on a bible quiz team.) I wanted evidence to all that I too was reading my Bible.

I would start this new life early Monday morning.  I woke up, prayed a small prayer, got dressed and was ready for school.  I literally walked 3 and a half blocks when I tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, that I have walked over several times before, and used a “potty word”.   Upset at what I had just done, I used a few more “potty words” for saying the first one.  When I realized what I did, I threw my new found salvation in the trash and decided this was too hard to be like someone else.  I used those two fingers more than ever that day.  That week in fact, I went to church with my very first black eye because of a brawl I got–I think it had something to do with those fingers I kept using.

Comparing myself to my friend, I was convinced that God had chosen her over me—hands down.  There was no way that he would ever pick someone like me to do anything of worth for his kingdom.  I thought I was a failure in so many ways because I couldn’t even be like my friend for just 3 hours let alone 24.  How was I going to ever have all those neat things my Sunday school teacher talked about?  I just knew that I would never be picked to do something great, or even have that perfect life, husband or kids.  Those blessing were reserved for someone like my friend, so I thought.  Never had I ever been so wrong.  Never have YOU ever been so wrong if you have had thoughts like this about yourself.   Let me tell you something, God thrives on challenges and boy was I a challenge!!  I realized much later that I was trying to serve a perfect God in the ways and manners that my friend was called to serve him.  I tried to model myself after her, thinking that that was how God wanted me to look, act and think.  There are certain criteria that all believers are to follow, but He made us individuals for a reason.

Trying to Serve a God I Don’t Understand

I needed to learn how God created me to be; how His plan was for my life and what He called me for.  The process for my salvation was not to do things like my friend, but to use my friends example as an inspiration for what I could have in my own way with God.   Steven Furtick said it right in his book Unqualified, God’s thoughts about any given situation (Including mine) cannot be numbered, we can’t even count them and they outnumber the grains of sand (pg42).  How can I try to serve a God that I don’t understand for myself?  When I misunderstand God’s checklist of qualification, I then  try to be something he never intended me to be and He doesn’t want a fake.

“Apart from God, it’s impossible to get a clear picture of who we are, because our identity is so intimately and intricately and inseparably bound to His.” (pg66)  When I read that quote I was hit with a truth that I am still discovering today; I can never discover my identity until I finish discovering God’s.  How can I mold my life after His purpose and plan if I don’t know what those are?  For me to try to live my life without discovering my God and his identity, is to never know who I am.  I Corinthians 13 says it perfectly in verse 12 when it reads…

 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

Have you ever tried to look at yourself in front of a completely blurred or dirty mirror?  Because of its faultiness, it is deceiving on what it reflects back to you.  The mirror shows you everything that is there but adds to or distorts the reflection.  Living our lives outside of the one who created and designed us, is like looking at ourselves through a mirror that is dim and/or distorted.  We can’t trust what it is we truly see because it’s not showing the proper image of who we really are.  As you draw closer to God, It’s like God sprays Windex then the distortions are fixed, adjusted and the smudges are cleaned off.  That same mirror you feared to look at because of what it showed you about yourself, now reveals to you what God sees in you.

Because we see ourselves one way through the distorted mirror, we probably change ourselves from God’s original design of how He made us to be. This newly fixed and clean mirror will show us who we were always meant to be and it will show us the real things we will need to change.  For example maybe there are some things we have gotten so used to wearing, but now they no longer look good on us; maybe anger, un-forgiveness, bitterness, fear, false humility, passivity, procrastination, doubt, laziness…basically sin and anything else God didn’t intend for us to have, needs to come off.  Don’t be discouraged, Steven said it right “…the presence of sin does not disqualify you from pursuing God’s plan or your life.  If that were the case, we’d all be hopelessly disqualified, because we all sin.  God blesses us despite our sins, and he is sovereign enough and good enough to use our mistakes for his glory.” (pg94)  Now this isn’t an excuse to just live life anyway we please and expect God to just remove the consequences when we say sorry.  If we should mess up He will be quick to forgive but we must make every effort to learn His voice for ourselves so that we may be who He called us to be; not in the image of someone else.

Weekly Challenge:

This week I would love for you to see if you are trying to be something you’re not.  Is there a part of your life that you are being authentically fake?  Read 1 King 3:3-14.  In this Bible story Soloman, David’s son, is honest about his feelings of insecurity after taking his father’s throne.  David was an amazing king and Soloman knew he was nothing like him.  So in these verses you see how God responds to Soloman’s need for help and wisdom to rule such a powerful kingdom. If you have some extra time, Steven preached a message years ago that called Death to Selfie. In this message Steven talks about Jacob in the bible and his sole desire to be like his Esau.  The whole series is awesome but I think this message is great for this week’s blog weekly challenge.

Also if you would like to hear more about my testimony read my book, “The Threshing: A Weapon Forged by Fire.” Sign up here to read the first three chapters for free!  You can also buy the full book on Amazon!

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