When Not Feeling 'Good Enough...'

Christians are a strange bunch. We walk around feeling unworthy, still struggling with feelings of guilt and shame. Others are plagued by doubt or worry about how life is treating them, and when long-sought answers are not forthcoming, they get angry, depressed, or weighed down with a whole list of awful emotional baggage.

In other words, life becomes hard. With all those feelings, doubts, worries, and no responses felt from God, many begin to wonder if they were ever received that grace after all. 

Some call it imposter syndrome, our pretending that all is well.  Others just have normal doubts or blame everyone else for not seeing victory.  But there is another possibility, one we fall into without even realizing it.

How often do we believers live as if God were a liar?

Hear me out.  God has done everything for us, so when we do not get what we expect from what He has said in His Word, we mope, rebel, or start to ignore His words altogether.  Each reaction pushes us out into the cold... 

Don't believe me?  First, listen to how God has equipped us! The Apostle Paul says it best:

He loves us no matter what our fickle feelings have to say about it.  That love began when we were rebels and dead in sin, so our lack of stellar behavior since salvation is no reason to doubt his enduring love.

To that, as the verse reads, He has a plan for our lives.  We are His hand-tailored handiwork, so the good works we are to be about await our unique abilities, our social/material place in this world.

He lavished us with spiritual gifts, those gifts that super-power us to accomplish life as He wants it. 

Then there is the ever-present, guiding, loving hand of the Holy Spirit. Without Him, we'd be toast...

But what do we do? We sit around and moan about being 'too poor, too lacking in this or that' to do anything for the kingdom.  As my Texan father would say, "Hogwash!"

Two diagnoses.  Either we do not believe, and in effect call God a liar in the process.  Or, the enemy of our souls has us so wrapped around his little finger that we do not see up from down. Probably both!

How do I know all this?  Because I have been there and done that many times myself.  "No opportunities," I thought to myself, and then didn't attempt to make any myself with the circumstances I WAS given. "Too shy to share," I insisted, rather than accepting my normal limitations for what they were and sharing what I could where I could.  And the list goes on.  

Basically, it is plain ol' disobedience. We call God a liar in our lives, dismissing what He tells us in Ephesians.  Paul wrote that epistle for us all, so my missing good works/words/attitudes/love are not His fault.

   With my lack of faith, of believing that He was with me, I was throwing God scraps so to speak, a little 'work' here and there, rather than preparing the full-course meal of all my best for a king, my Lord.

Are you guilty too?  I get the feeling that many of us are, and we then allow for our rebellion because others are doing the same thing. Naturally, the blindness to it all is a lack of spiritual sight, perhaps some devilish hands covering our eyes to complete our own self-deception and keep us bound there.

So, if you feel that you might be one of the guilty many, the call goes out.  The same call that has brought us all to our knees so many times. In Revelations, Jesus proclaimed to those very same Ephesians (2:4):  You have forsaken the love you had at first.  Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.

Not just being sorry, no, that will be self-deception again; but present a full-fledged turning from the error to God, the repentance which will believe what HE says we are and can do IN HIM! Then, take that step one day at a time.

Look no further than your own heart.  The Holy Spirit will show you what you need to do.  Praise God!  HE has never forsaken us, even when we forsake ourselves...

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