I always thought doing great things for God had something to do with being famous or doing something big for Jesus. Whether it be going to the ends of the earth to be a missionary or being martyred for preaching the Gospel; whether it be being an international speaker, writer of a best selling book or a worship leader of the largest church. This has been my definition of what the ultimate Christ follower was, as if it was something great to be achieved. Thus, I began to struggle with who I was and what I was doing. For years I fought this internal battle of feeling worthless and looking at what I was doing as not cutting it, because I wanted to be able to define myself as what I believed to be the "ultimate sold out Christian". These last few years have been eye-opening to me. I've journeyed through struggle and victory, frustration and peace and finally rest, knowing that what I am doing as a person really does not matter.
Let me explain myself. My whole life I have tried to define myself by what I do. In high school I was a youth leader, youth worship leader, and coach. That is how I viewed myself and what mattered to me. In college, all I could think of was marrying the love of my life. I was his and he was mine and that is who I was. When we got married and had a family, I was wife and mom. That is what I did and that is who I was. Later, we started working with a sex trafficking organization in town. I dug right in and began to define myself as the anti-sex trafficking activist. That was who I was and that was how I defined myself. Once we left that organization, we rented some land to start a community. We wanted to live off the land, raise some animals, and have a community of people around us who loved God and each other. It was all good, but then I began to define myself as that. I thought I was looking to God, but looking back, once I began to look at what we were doing and defined myself as the "farmer/caretaker/animal lover" and took my eyes off of God, it went from good to not good.
One lesson I am in the process of learning is that it does not matter what I do. What does matter is who I become. If I'm seeking the Lord every day and looking to Him for guidance, allowing Him to work in my heart and change me, then in the end, I will be made whole. I do not have to do big things for God in order to be a "good Christian". I do not need the world to pat me on the back and say, "well done!" I really do believe that God's view of big is not what we see as big. God sees the little things and those are bigger in His eyes that singing on stage at the largest church or writing a best selling book or speaking in front of thousands of people. There is a lot of freedom in that. I do not have to prove myself to anyone, nor do I have to prove myself to God. I can trust that God is teaching me and guiding me through life. I can know that He loves me.
