I have been struggling a lot lately.  About writing this blog post, or any blog post, for that matter.  In fact, I’m pretty discouraged.

Reflecting on why I am feeling like this and why I’m procrastinating, I was struck by the notion that I was not avoiding  it because I don’t want to do it.  I do want to do it.

I just don’t want to NOT do it perfectly.   

Boy, did that open some doors I would rather have remained closed.  Talk about setting yourself up for failure.

Emotions bombarded me like a meteorite exploding inside my head.  Charged feelings like a sense of not being a good enough writer or not having anything to say that anyone would want to hear invaded my mind. 

Negative thoughts swept in that even God would find my words empty or dull.   After all, I had said from the very beginning of my blog that I was doing it for God.  Was I?

I know.  I know.  Satan can play with our minds this way.  Nevertheless, I couldn’t let them go.  Trying to muddle my way through this jumbled mess, it occurred to me that maybe I was not striving to please God at all.   Or anyone else.

I was trying to impress myself.   To increase my sense of self-worth.  To feel like I was good enough.  Surpassing even what God made me to be.  Proud, arrogant, superior, judgmental, self-serving-all great attributes of what I thought I had to be….PERFECT.

Realizing now that perfection was my goal, a life script that I had unconsciously been following since I was a child, I now understood that whatever I undertook had to be perfect.  Good enough would never be good enough.  

Meditating on this unattainable goal of my need to be be perfect brought back some deeply rooted childhood memories-of when I was about two years old and just learning to talk.  At that age, I could not talk plain, as many children that age can’t. 

I had a stutter and my maternal grandfather would stop me from speaking and tell me not to talk until I could do it right.  Eventually, fear crept in and led me to want to speak less and less.  Growing up, I would avoid speaking situations whenever I could.  

The Bible told me I was fearfully and wonderfully made by a loving God.  Made in his image.  So, of course, I thought he expected me to speak perfectly,   

I sure didn’t feel wonderfully made. 

Looking back, I think I felt like a reject, a misfit-one of God’s mistakes.  Never mind that Moses and Paul may have not been great orators, I had to be perfect to gain God’s favor.  I was just not enough.  I couldn’t even write a letter (blogpost) to my Abba that was acceptable.  

The post you are reading now was not the one originally to be published but rather one birthed by my Band of Brothers, the BOBs as we call ourselves. 

The BOBs, whom I have met with weekly for nearly six years offered me encouragement to be just who I am and to accept that God loves me just that way.  They prayed for me to just lay it all out there in my blogpost and let it go. 

Write it to please God, not man.  Yeah, sounds good.  But how do I do that?

One brother offered a wonderful quote, “Whatever other people think of you is none of your business.”  So profound in its simplicity and its common sense.  

To say I appreciated their encouragement and prayers would be an understatement.  I love them dearly.  Their words encouraged me to look deeper.  I needed to go deeper.

I wanted and NEEDED God’s encouragement too.   So I jumped into God’s word to see what I could find.

SIDE NOTE:  I keep looking down at the readability analysis of this post and see it now at a 77.4 rating, which is considered “fairly easy to read.”.  Not good enough.  I want it to be 80 or above so it says “easy to read.” 

You getting the picture of how insecure I am?

What did God really think of me?  How does he encourage?  How does he counter the lies of the enemy? 

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

God is content with our imperfections and flaws.  We need not carry our fears and insecurities around with us any longer. For he can mend broken souls, feelings of being less than, of not being good enough.  He wants us to draw our strength from Jesus and allow him to be the light in our darkness. 

In Galatians 1:10 we hear,  “Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

We will never be good enough by our culture’s standards.  Attempts to live up to these standards will certainly blind us from looking to the cross for our needs and desires.  As Christians  we must not fall victim to the lies of the evil one.  Attempting to be enough, we deny ourselves of the blessing of God being enough.

When my soul feels broken and the old doubts creep in, I am reminded of a saying I once heard from Marty Mann, one of the founders of the AlAnon program….Do not measure your self worth by how close you are to where you think you should be.  But, rather, by how far you’ve come from where you were. (paraphrased)

Side note: Looking down, I now see my readability score has risen to 79.2.  Still considered “fairly easy to read.” 

 

Good Enough