To be honest I’ve been better, but God is always there when I need Him.
When I started off my life of ministry, I was filled with faith and dedicated to a set of guiding principles. It was my dream that if I put all my weight into trusting God for every aspect of my life, I would not only prosper, but thrive in a spiritually successful, balanced, and satisfied life.
Instead, l’ve found myself feeling empty, frustrated, and jaded. I didn’t realize that following my dreams would sometimes put me into opposition with others, even with people in my own spiritual community. So instead of following the principles I set off with, I worked to be accepted by everyone all the time. It didn’t work.
Today my family went on an adventure. We were trying to escape the Phoenix heat and find a beautiful place to play. We were not disappointed when we found the Tonto Natural Bridge State Park. The two-hour drive there provided a lot of time to think and process, something I realized I really needed, based on how irritable and short tempered I felt with my kids. I’ve learned when I can’t handle myself with the kids, it usually has a lot more to do with my own unprocessed feelings than their behavior.
I realized I’ve been stressing over what I perceived to be others’ expectations of me and my fear I would fail them. As I prayed over this, God spoke this truth to me- self acceptance is the first step in living an abundant life. Then God spoke to me from an unexpected voice, the Twenty One Pilots song “Stressed Out.” The first verse says-
“I was told when I get older all my fears would shrink
But now I’m insecure and I care what people think”
These words hit close to home. I guess I always thought that my childhood fears and insecurities would slowly fade away when I got older, but the fact is I’m seeing that my fears and insecurities have only been magnified by my adult life. Towards the end of the song, he says-
“Used to dream of outer space but now they're laughing at our face
Saying, ‘Wake up, you need to make money’”
I saw that my dreams of a thriving life in ministry have been sideswiped by a hundred worldly voices that tell me to “Wake up, you need to (fill in the blank)”. I naively thought that if I followed the Holy Spirit, I would always feel accepted and content. The fact I’ve had to learn is that before I can be content, I need to accept myself and be satisfied with who God has called me to be.
The next song on my shuffled playlist was “Beautiful Things” by Gungor. This song has often made me cry in the car, and it didn’t disappoint today. God used this song to speak directly to my disillusioned, jaded heart “I can still make beautiful things out of dust.” He is calling me back to dream again, to have faith that if I lean all my weight on Him, I will live to see beautiful things in my own life.
So I will. I will trust Him. I will grow and learn to accept myself, no matter what anyone else thinks or says. I’m sure it won’t be easy, but I’ll have faith that God will lead me through that too. He is good, and He is always there when I need Him..