I have to admit I just can't keep up! Facebook, Insta, TikTok, and Snapchat all remind me how much everyone is succeeding and I am a complete and total failure. How do people look so good all the time? How come their skin is always so smooth and I have three eyes!? And why is their marriage and kids doing so good and mine can't seem to figure out how to buy me dinner at least once? Then when I see how other pastors and leaders are expanding their ministries, I can't help but compare myself and find myself lacking. Anyone else know what I mean?
Some time ago I was really struggling with those feelings of inadequacy and failure to the point where I was stressed and depressed. I would get up in the middle of the night and would not be able to go back to sleep because I had so much angst about this house of cards that I felt I lived in. On one of those mornings, around 2:00 am I rolled out of bed and decided to go spend some time reading God’s Word, hmmm not a bad idea for a pastor to try something like that right? On that particular morning, I was reading the story in John about Jesus feeding the 5000.
John 6:1–13 (NIV84) 1 Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), 2 and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick. 3 Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. 4 The Jewish Passover Feast was near. 5 When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” 6 He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. 7 Philip answered him, “Eight months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!” 8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, 9 “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” 10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.”There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand of them. 11 Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish. 12 When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” 13 So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.
After reading that passage, I did something I usually do, which is, I asked myself the question, “Who am I in the story?”
Was I one of the people in the crowd – sitting down and waiting on Jesus to feed me?
Was I Phillip who started thinking about how much it would cost to care for people?
Was I Andrew who wanted to steal a kid’s lunch but didn’t because it would not be enough?
Was I the boy who “offered” up his lunch?
After thinking about it I decided that I identified the most, at that moment, with the disciples who were waiting on Jesus’ instruction and ready to do what He wanted of them. Good answer (and spiritual too) right? But in the moment that I came to that conclusion the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, “Gary you are such a liar! (How dare the Holy Spirit speak to me like that?) You may want to be a disciple but you think that you are Jesus!”
“Whaaat! No way God! I would never assume that role!”
“But Gary that is exactly what you are doing. You are stressed and depressed right now because you believe that you are responsible for the miracle. You think it is all on you to do what only I can do because you have believed the world’s measure of success.”
Boom! Mind blown. Holy Spirit, right again! I have believed that I am responsible for the success, for the miracle. What I needed to be was one of the disciples, to just walk up to Jesus with hands open to receive from Him and then to turn around and share it with others. Then when I had exhausted what was in my hands I needed to simply go back to Him and receive more to pass out. No stress there! Win-win situation!
Here are some of the takeaways I wrote in that moment…
Serving Jesus is success!
Obedience to Him is the greatest success I can ever imagine!
When I am serving Jesus then it always entails serving others.
The greatest Insta moments should be pictures of me laying down my life in serving God’s love to others. There needs to be a serving filter.
And chew on this for a moment, the nature of a servant is that it is not on us to provide or to “make it happen,” it is up to us to simply obey. To humbly come to God with outstretched hands so that He can fill it up, not for us to keep to ourselves but for us to give to others.
Last thing the Holy Spirit showed me that morning…
When we serve God and others unselfishly – God takes care of everything we need or want.
I am sure the disciples were hungry too, but they simply served first and after they were done Jesus provided a basket filled with goodies for each one of them.
Don’t be conformed any longer to the pattern of today’s social media but be transformed by the renewing of your minds. Learn it and walk in it: serving is success. Serving Jesus and others will lead to such a sense of significance that will leave you joyful and at peace.
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