Masterpiece
Do you ever think about how weird it is that you can do something for years, move on and never really put much thought into it again or you can know someone most of your life and not think about them unless you happen to run into them. But then there are certain events and certain people that may have only occupied your life for a day, weeks, or months and years later you are still thinking about them. What was it about those short lived moments that will be burnt into your memory forever? And did they have to be so short lived? Or did you decide to walk away?
Lately I have been trying to get to know my Creator. I have been asking Him questions like “what was your purpose in creating me”? You see, I know I am His masterpiece and I know He is a perfect artist (step outside, you will agree) so who better to ask what I was made for than Him. You can look at a painting and it may seem worthless but let the artist tell you about it and it will suddenly have meaning and purpose.
I think those moments, you know the ones that were so short lived, the ones you compare everything else with, the time you felt like everything was in its perfect place. Like an artist bringing meaning to something that otherwise seemed worthless, have you ever thought those brief periods of time might be the Creator breathing life and meaning into you and whispering “This is what I made you for.”
Once you hear that sweet whisper, you come alive in a way that allows life to take on a whole new meaning and makes it impossible to deny the existence of God. After that, it’s hard to settle for anything less. Don’t get me wrong, it is possible. But there is always that soft whisper saying, “remember who I created you to be.”
Lately, that whisper has been louder than anything else in my life. I do remember and I don’t know why I have been trying to walk away. I guess it seemed too good to be true, I thought I should move on while those special moments were still special. Maybe, part of me didn’t think I could handle the calling. Would I be able to sustain my energy, my attitude, and the love I had for the people I was surrounded by or would the human in me come out let them all down. “Oh ye of little faith…”
Now I know that God can and will sustain me as long as I am looking to Him for sustenance. If I begin to look to myself or my surroundings of course I will fall and over the last year I feel like I have been tripping left and right. As I have only begun to understand the fulfillment, power, peace, and endurance that accompanies an unwavering reliance on our creator I have been taken back to the time He was whispering “this is what I created you for.” This time, I don’t have to be afraid of running out of energy or love because I understand that I was not the source of either. Now I can move forward with confidence that the source is eternal……and oh I am ecstatic.
You see, two summers ago I met a group of the most beautiful girls that touched my heart in a way I will never forget. I had always halfway jokingly said I wanted to start a camp for youth and spend the rest of my life at summer camp… little did I know that would turn into a vision I couldn’t shake, a dream I had to pursue. God used that summer and those girls to give me a glimpse of what it life is like when you are doing what you were made to do.
The vision He has given me is a place where teens that have just come out of wilderness programs, rehabilitation, detention centers, sex trafficking, orphanages can come outside the recovery, the hurt, and the only place that may have felt healthy and have an opportunity to explore their gifts and talents and to allow God to show them who He created them to be. I will argue that the closest I have ever felt to the father is when I was functioning in His perfect will. I stopped just believing in God and I felt like I was truly His masterpiece. That He did have intention and purpose in putting me together the way He did. For me, it is youth ministry and helping struggling teens find purpose and worth. For them, it may be art, outdoors, medical, missions… who knows other than the precious one who formed us?
I do know that God woke me up one night last week to tell me He wants to work through my ministry to breathe life into these kids and whisper “this is what I made you for.” So that they will walk away from the camp/program with direction to step into the world and be the part of the body that He was creating when He formed them.
I guess this didn’t really come as a surprise to me, but when He asked, “What are you waiting for?” My response was, “I don’t know.”
Fear of Failure
“The fear of failure has many people in neutral or paralyzed or playing the game of cover up.”
We have all failed at something in the past. I believe it’s pretty normal to have specific picture or situation that you remember so clearly, it’s almost as if you are reliving the way it made you feel when you think about it. My natural inclination is to avoid or attempt to harden my heart toward anything that would bring those feelings back up.
I have always thought of myself as being really confident, comfortable in my own skin, and not afraid of much. These things are true to some degree but I am starting to see that the roots of a lot of my most disappointing and frustrating experiences are not things I have failed at but things I have given up because I was afraid to fail.
Crazy thing is, I didn’t even realize I had a fear of failure because I’m so good at making up excuses that I can even convince myself to believe they are true.
“One of the first things people do when they fear failure is to make excuses to why they cannot do something.”
I would tell myself things like:
“I will do it later; I have my whole life why would I worry about this now”
“I don’t care about it enough to do all the work”
“The minimum effort will be enough to get me through the situation”
“I’m just going to give up here; I think I changed my mind”
“I think I have been called somewhere else.”
The worst was when I would try to spiritualize my excuses… and if that wasn’t enough to convince me, I would even pull other people in hoping that they would help me spiritualize my excuse, if they believed it, it was easier for me to ignore the fact that I had absolutely no real peace.
If I am real, these excuses could often be more honestly worded as:
“Opening this door opens the door for my fear to creep in.”
“I’m so afraid of doing everything right and it still turning out wrong, what if all I have is not enough?”
“The less I give of myself, the less I lose. I can live without the gain, as long as I can hold on to what I already have.”
“The more I try, the more I realize how much I want this and the more risky it becomes.”
“I’m in too deep and so far out of my comfort zone, it would be easier to swim back to shore and start there…. If anything, it will keep me in my comfort zone for a while longer. ”
Even writing these things out makes me want to cringe. Most of the time I could successfully convince myself (at least for a time) that I didn’t want something I really wanted, it’s kind of scary when I think about it.
The fear of failure has been so evident in many areas of my life: in relationships, personal goals, family, jobs, deciding where to live, letting people know all of me…
It’s disturbing.
Why?
It’s an issue of pride, insecurity, and lack of faith. In my eyes, failing makes me a failure… which is so far from the truth. I think I was afraid those failures would say more about me than my character would.
I have been asking God to help me be real with myself, recognize this fear, and fight for the desires He has placed in my heart even if it means stepping out of my comfort zone. I think God asks us all the time to do things that we cannot do on our own. He wants us to rely on Him. He doesn’t want us to play it safe and avoid anything risky; He wants us to have faith.
“‘I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground…’ His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy
servant!’” Matthew 25:25-26
Past failures should make us careful but we should not allow them to paralyze us.
I have always been a fighter but I haven’t always been willing to face my fear of failure which has successfully pushed me to give up on things, people, places, goals that my heart really desired. I pushed away the chance for anything good. Decisions that have left me with the question “what if I kept going?”
God has been challenging me to look beyond all the excuses I tell myself to make it easier to move on rather than move through the things that scare the crap out of me, that seem out of my control, and seem like I couldn’t make it through without screwing up. I don’t want to walk through life taking the path that seems easiest. Maybe it’s not a bad path and I would still be able to find contentment but I don’t think I would be experiencing what God has for me to the fullest. I’m not willing to compromise for the sake of keeping my weaknesses hidden. I’m not willing to keep jumping from one thing to the next.
I don’t want to keep getting in deep and swimming back to shore. I don’t care if it means sitting in the same place until I’m ready to move forward. I want to move past the place I have been allowing my fear to stop me. I don’t think I will ever say “what if I didn’t stick it out?”
There have been so many times I find myself saying “I just need to start over.” What does that even mean? I wouldn’t get to the middle of a road race and say “I didn’t reserve enough energy; I need to go back to the beginning.” I would adjust my pace. I’d find a pace that would get me through, even if it meant walking or resting for a while.
Now
“Search me, O God and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts…”
Anxious thoughts… Lately I have become more and more aware of how often I get ahead of myself in my thoughts. I think it might have a lot to do with being a girl or maybe just a human but it definitely reveals a lack of trust in God’s ability to take care of my needs and desires. When I think about the percentage of my thoughts that concern the future (whether it be 5 hours from now or 5 years), I feel like such a control freak. What am I so worried about?
“But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say,”
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more imortant than clothes?”
I read these words, and I believe these words are true but for some reason I have a hard time keeping my mind in the present. The bottom line is, you could always be somewhere else or with someone else but you are always where you are. Most often when we spend massive amounts of time dreaming about something/someone we don’t have or somewhere we want to be…. when we finally get it we end up disappointed and its usually not because the thing we wanted isn’t good but because we have dreamed it up into something completely unrealistic and can no longer appreciate it for what it is.
I have done this with people, with places, things, stages of life….. why? Imagining the way something is going to make you feel or should make you feel before you are actually feeling it instantly creates expectations… which then leads you to try to control situations so that your expectations can be met… eliminating any element of surprise and completely clouding reality.
And then when your expectations are not met, you feel like your world is crumbling. But really the only thing that’s crumbling is the world you created.
Meanwhile God is probably looking at us saying something like this…
‘Just feel what you feel when you feel it.
Speak the words when they come.
Stop trying to control your thoughts and emotions and just live.
I created you with intention.
I made you to act and react in certain ways,
to respond emotionally to different things,
to desire certain things…..
so when it happens, let it happen. You don’t have to create your own world or beg me to tell you why you feel one way but you think you should feel another. As long as you are seeking me first, trust that I designed you to feel the way you feel. I’m not out to confuse you.’
Oh how easy it is to complicate, over spiritualize, and end up trying to control life. I think… when we can truly trust that God built us just the way He wanted us we will stop second guessing everything and trying to control life. We will be able to trust that our natural responses and feelings are not bad, they are actually who we are… His creation. Then we will have no reason to hide, change, or manipulate the the way we feel. We will be able to stop thinking in the future and experience the now to the fullest.
