“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” Nelson Mandela’s 1994 Inaugural Speech- written by Marianne Williamson
Man, those are powerful words!! Let me first catch you up to speed on how I came to this quote. I have an (sometimes a curse, sometimes a blessing) over-analytical mind. This morning’s sermon at church was awesome!! It got the old think tank going in a million different directions, before finally settling down on one thing…am I living my life right? My mind sent a message to my heart that it was time to do some major growing.
We talked about “What do I tell my friends about what I owe Jesus.” I know, I know…it sounds like a title from one of those tracts you get from the rack at church. Seriously though, it was an amazing sermon! Phil gave four major points of debt, “I owe Jesus my: love, loyalty, obedience, and sacrifice.” Here are a couple of great quotes from the sermon- “Christianity is a daily faith…a commitment;” ”He died for me, and I died with Him;” ”Obedience isn’t when things are easy, it’s when I have to stretch and grow;” and “Are you conscious of the sacrifice God made on your behalf…thank Him with lives of service.”
The discussion then led to, “I can’t have (live according to) the world’s values and claim that I am living for God.” Of course that sweet conscience of mine asks, “Are you living according to the world or according to God’s Word.” I would love to say that I could immediately say, “Woo Hoo! I’m always living according to God’s Word!” Well, it’s not really that easy. Yes, I strive to live every day through God’s Word- believing, praying and repenting. The part that I get caught up in is believing what the world tells me. I’m not as shallow as believing everything that it tells me or really even looking to the world for acceptance. I’m talking about that part of you that allows some of the lies into your brain. Let’s face it, most of what the world tells you is lies. Worldly things are selfish, so all it can tell you is things that will allow it to continue in selfishness.
Yep, you knew it was heading this way. The world tells you that you don’t meet expectations if you don’t have perfection. Perfection expectations can take many forms…physical, emotional, intellectual. Every where you go there are books, magazines, tv shows and people who are sending you subliminal, and most times blatant, messages about who you are and where to categorize yourself in this life.
I think the Nelson Mandela quote says it all…we place ourselves unknowingly in darkness, when we hold ourselves back for fear. He takes it a step further to say that we fear being powerful in faith, even more, because we know that it will be an even harder fall. That can be masked as humility or anything else you want to call it, but the biggest point is that it is contradictory to our faith. We need to show anyone and everything the love and grace of God through our actions, because there aren’t many people willing to hear the Word from someone who isn’t striving to practice what their preaching. Again, we’re not teaching perfection, we’re teaching grace.
We fear not being good enough, which keeps us from putting ourselves out there and trying. The world is always telling us we aren’t good enough, so when would we really ever get the chance to be in the light? It’s procrastination, plain and simple. We put it off because it is uncomfortable and awkward and it is much easier to believe those things about ourselves, than to fight back against them and believe otherwise. Believing otherwise would mean that we would need to pull our faith from where we have it hidden and let it out to be vulnerable against the things in this world. Yes, there will be quite a bit of pain by doing that, but if we don’t put our faith out there…it will only grow to the size of the container we keep it in. Hiding it is putting it in quite a small container. It’s like the parable of the talents…are we going to bury them for fear of losing them or are we going to take a risk and invest it in others and help it to multiply in worth. Faith is priceless to us, and can be even more priceless to others.
Okay, enough of the preaching. I guess this is where I will admit my fears- fear of failure, which is part of the bigger fear, dissappointment. It took me a long time to find my identity in God and I’m not going to let the world take it. Today’s sermon was an excellent reminder to get back to thinking that way, so that I don’t live otherwise. I found the Mandela quote and thought it was an excellent way to sum up thoughts on the sermon. It was very profound and completely true. We need to be strong in our faith and let our actions show the same. If we aren’t confident in God, we will not be confident in ourselves…most of the time we try to become confident in ourselves, before we try to become confident in God. It just doesn’t work that way. Woo Hoo for an excellent sermon! : )
