I was reading last night in Brennan Manning’s “Ragamuffin Gospel.” I’d heard it was good, and finally managed to get my hands on a borrowed copy. Only a few pages in, I can see why people have recommended it. It certainly could be a life-changing book. It directs a person toward a grace-centered approach to the gospel of Christ. I like it.
But really, whether I like the book or not is irrelevant. What is relevant to me is that it made me think about something. I have a hard time being gracious to myself. More specifically, I have a hard time feeling as if God would, could, or is gracious toward me. And, it isn’t that I think God is incapable of grace. I mean after all, I don’t have any probelm seeing God as capable of being gracious and forgiving toward any and all others. He forgives murderers, rapists, liars, and all kinds of immorality every day. But something in my mind always says, “Yeah, but that’s somebody else. Then, there’s you! (me).” And grace, or at least feeling grace, doesn’t come easy.
Usually, for me, this comes out in thoughts about quitting ministry. I think about it. I wouldn’t say often, but I would say regularly. I sometimes wish I had some job that I could go to and just do it and then come home and nobody would care whether I was perfect or not – whether I had everything “together” or not. I wouldn’t feel pressured to wear a plastic smile or ask people how they’re doing when I really don’t feel like hearing about it.
Here’s why I stay in. If I leave the ministry and if everyone else who struggles with sin leaves the ministry, there won’t be anyone left. The ones who will be left will be the ones who always wear their plastic smiles, and ask you how you’re doing when they really don’t care. On the surface, it will be nice for everyone. But there will be no genuineness coming from those in ministry.
I appreciate Manning’s works. I appreciate his struggle with alcoholism. I appreciate that he is able to understand grace in the midst of it. I appreciate his understanding that God doesn’t expect perfection and that, in fact, we are created in such a manner that God actually expects us to be imperfect. And so we are.
I was thinking of Paul’s thorn in the flesh. We don’t know what it was, but we understand the nature of it. It is that thing in our life that makes us wonder, “Is God’s grace sufficient — for me.” And so, like Paul, we repeat our pleas for rescue from the thorns in our flesh. By faith, we must accept that God’s answer to us is as it was for Paul, “My grace is, indeed, sufficient for you.”
I found myself last night praying – Lord, is your grace sufficient for me? Today I find myself in two places. First, in my head, able to tell myself that God’s grace is, indeed, sufficient. But finding it more difficult to feel inwardly. But it is comforting to remember that Jesus befriended, ate with, and socialized with people who were mired in sinful lives. It gives me hope to know that were he here with me in the flesh, he would have no problem sitting at my table.
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Indeed, I felt a similar tug when recently reading “Velvet Elvis” by Rob Bell. This book is rocking my world. He really resonated with me as he was wrestling with a desire to run as fast as he could from his church of 10,000 thinking he wanted to be anywhere rather than there.
He was feeling the uncomfortable need to be “superpastor,” i.e., to be everywhere everything to everyone at all times. Don’t we all feel that? To me this is the curse of being a conscientious minister; how can you sleep when there are people within your reach who still don’t get it?
In the end, Rob stayed, and so should I, and so should you. But we don’t need to be everything to everybody, and perhaps we shouldn’t even really be trying to be. But we should be everything that we SHOULD be to everyone we SHOULD impact. In other words, know yourself, know your limitations, and know that your God does too.
Amen?