ORDEAL BY FIRE

Something very perplexing happens to many of us who want to enter Christian ministry. We begin to see that we are entirely unworthy of such service. I have the the desire to serve my Savior to the utmost but was unable to shake the conviction that so many things entirely disqualified me. I perceived that I lacked the faith, love, joy, and peace I was supposed to possess. Therefore, these feelings made me feel like a hypocrite. I was supposed to be God-centered and other-centered, but I perceived  that I was really self-centered.

To make matters worse, this awareness made me cycle between shame, self-contempt, jealousy, and even contempt for God, who was evidently refusing to give me what I needed to serve Him. However, I began to see my desperation through a Biblical lens:

• So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.(Romans 7:21-25)

Paul's desperation had become mine. I wanted to do good, to be pure to serve God, but I knew that I was miles away. However, Paul thanked Jesus who had delivered him, but this was perplexing because he then confessed that he wasn't delivered. He remained a captive to sin in his flesh.

How could Paul have been delivered, while, at the same time, he remained a captive? Hadn't Jesus promised to set us free (John 8:31-32)? But it didn't appear that Paul was free (Galatians 5:17), and neither was I. In fact, I felt like such a spiritual failure that I wanted to run - anywhere - but there was no place to go.

At least now, Paul was at my side and so were the Psalmists who had often felt abandoned and rejected by their Provider. Meanwhile, I was beginning to see that brokenness was part of the Gospel package:

• But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. (2 Corinthians 4:7-11)

I too was always being given over to the discouragements of death and unworthiness. However, it seemed that this was a necessary process. I would first have to learn that Christ was my only hope and that His worthiness was the only worthiness. Therefore, I was buried in Christ, and it was no longer about me and my qualifications but His alone (Galatians 2:20).

This understanding has become my Declaration of Independence. Consequently, when Satan reminds me of my unworthiness, I counter:

• Satan, you are perfectly right about me being totally unworthy of my Savior. However, I serve a God who is able to take the lowest of people and commission them to serve Him. Therefore, I thank you for reminding me of the great grace to which He has called me, dying for such an unworthy one as I.