A Very Personal Struggle

      I'm going to talk this time about a very personal struggle I have had for many years. It relates in part to my recent rambles comparing life to playing an online game where you know the account is going to be terminated. In many ways, I'm embarrassed to talk about this because of how petty it is, but if I don't talk about it, I also don't deal with it, and it continues to stew and hurt me and potentially my relationships with those around me. It is also my hope that my talking about it may help others who struggle silently or not so silently with the same thing. Please do not misunderstand my intentions with this post. I am not looking for sympathy. I am trying to name and exorcise this particular demon which continues to torment me.

     Put simply, I struggle with watching people with whom I went to school, or known elsewhere in life, succeed in their goals for ministry where I have not. I don't begrudge them their success, I celebrate it, and yet I feel left behind, and sometimes even abandoned and looked down upon as though I am somehow inferior to them. I know this latter part is due to my own personal insecurity about my own worth and about how others see me. While on the one hand I know I am at least their equal, on the other I do not feel like it, and I project this feeling onto other people so that if I am not careful, I begin to believe others believe me inferior as well.

     "Why is everything I attempt fought against?" "Why am I constantly turned down?" "Why is there this barrier against me?" "I'm sure people are laughing at me, my attempts, and my ideas." "Why are the only jobs I can find at or near minimum wage when I know I am capable of so much more?" "I don't understand why this is happening to me." These are all thoughts which play through my head, and they get darker at times such as, "Why is God holding me back?" "Why am I even still here if I'm not able to do anything?"

     Here's the thing, all of these statements, and this struggle which I have is based on how I see myself, and how I think others see me here in this life, to use my previous metaphor, in this game which is about to have its account terminated. What happens when the account is terminated? No matter how high of a level you reach, no matter how much gold you accumulate, no matter how much reputation you achieve, or how high your score, you lose everything as though it didn't exist and never happened. If your personal worth is tied to the game, it instantly becomes worthless once it's gone.

     What does this mean for me and my struggle? That I am making myself miserable over something which makes no difference whatsoever.

     I'm going to share something else very personal to me as well. This is something I think I have only shared with one other person, but I think it is important to understand here as well. If you think I'm delusional, that's fine. Believe what you want.

     I have experienced God. I have sensed and felt Him. I wrote in a recent ramble about a Near Death Experience (NDE) I recently heard. What that man experienced resonated with me because I know I have experienced it in part as well, and not just once. I have never had an NDE, but there have been times, seemingly at random moments in my life and once when I was deeply and inconsolably upset, when God revealed Himself to me and broke through to me and my mind, where I felt His all consuming, overwhelming love for me personally, and at times for others. A few times I can even say I sort of saw Him, though in gray like through a veiled curtain where everything was indistinct and vague yet knowable enough to my mind and senses. I know it was the only thing which broke and transformed my inconsolability when I was deeply upset the one time which I mentioned.

     It is because of these experiences as well as what I know from Scripture that I know what and who is waiting for me once the game ends, and that nothing I achieve here, no status I attain here, no position or amount of possessions I acquire here matters in the slightest. What matters is loving and being loved by Him. What matters is how I have loved others, and how they have felt loved by me. What matters how I have stepped back so that through the person of Jesus Christ within me His love can flow through me regardless of these very temporary circumstances.

     So, as some would say, I am incongruent between what I know for certain as fact, and what I feel because of my insecurity. It is my belief that our adversary uses these insecurities against me, knowing that they are my weak points, and I feel guilty when I succumb to them because I do know better. As a result, it becomes a dark spiral downwards for me emotionally.

     As I write this, to be honest, it scares me that some might read this and decide I am completely unfit for service of any kind. Maybe I'm mentally ill. I definitely shouldn't be responsible for discipling or pastoring anyone. And these are all thoughts running through my mind even as I type, but I am typing them out for this very reason. I am typing them out to call them out and bring them into the light instead of the dark recesses of my mind where they like to hide and take root. And I am sharing them in the case that someone else who may read this is being told the same things somewhere within their mind as well.

     Because they are lies. Whether some uninformed person or bully does read them and react in this way is irrelevant. They are still lies. They are lies precisely because the game is going to end, and no level we've achieved here matters, and everyone will have the veil lifted whether they want it to or not. All that will be present is the presence of the indescribable Being whose love for each one of us is overwhelming and all consuming, and we will either accept and receive that love or we will not recognize it and reject it and plunge ourselves into darkness.

     To whomever reads this, I hope that, if you have experienced the same struggles that I have, you might take comfort in knowing that you are not alone, and all these things you are told within those dark recesses are in fact lies and falsehoods meant to drive you further into the darkness and away from His light. You are loved without hesitation, without reservation, without conditions, and without limit. You are loved by a Father who just wants you to be okay, and know that you are loved, and wants you to express His love through you to others as well. Regardless of the temporary circumstances and how these make you feel, you are loved by Him and eventually, that veil will be removed and all of these questions will disappear as you experience His full presence without distraction.