Doubt
Ok here is the deal...this may have nothing to do with church leadership at first but I really feel like it applys.
1) I have to be honest...I'm fake! I'm not happy all the time, in fact there are days when I really don't want to be around people at all! I'm a sinner, I still sin all the time, and there are days where that eats me up inside and i have so much doubt about myself! I don't think that i'm as great as every may say that I am... I'm just a sinner saved by grace...and that is how I hope to present myself to you in that way! I'm not perfect, and so if I have made myself to look like that to you, i'm sorry!
2)I am scared. I have no idea what is next and i'm not going to hide it anymore! I don't know where God is going to take me, or if I'm going to be good enough...I like the institutionalized life of IWU, I like knowing where my friends are, where i'm eating, and where I'm going to sleep! I have no clue where I'm going to end up or what I'm going to do!
3) I'm worried about those around me! The last couple of weeks I've been hearing a lot of my close friends, or people who've invested into me say that they are re-thinking Christianity...now don't get me wrong or shut me out yet! I agree we should know what we believe and should process that! The last thing I want to be known as is some who believe just so he has something to hold on to! I want to believe because I love what I believe and want to give my whole life and heart to it. But is there a line in which we can doubt our believes? I just wonder! And my friends who read this an may be mad at me for worrying about them, it's not that i think you're bad, i just wonder if there is a good way of doubting about things and a bad way. I doubt, but i've found strength in the call of Christ to have a child like faith...a faith that believes that there are things about God i'll never know or understand, that is just fine! In fact I think it makes God worth following!
4) What does this have to do about anything! I think its because I'm doubting, Am I really supposed to do everything i've been told I am supposed to do?!? I mean am I supposed to be a pastor, seperated from the crowd? Am I supposed to take on peoples loads and help them walk this journey of life? is mentoring really a good life style to have? Now these aren't questions that are taking me away from my life style, but if those who put these thoughts in me are now changing, were they wrong or right in the first place....With everything in my heart I want to believe they were right! I know I'm a sinner saved by grace, and I know that God is using me, when i think am I in the right place, there is an overwhelming yes in my spirit!
Church leadership: We are going to doubt ourselves! We are going to have people who invested into us fail us! We are going to fail them! So doubt, doubt in a way that will still allow God to be God, and not yourself to be God! You're congregation will doubt, and they are going to ask tough questions, but don't shun them for it...Love them, at least they are trying right? What do you all think? am i way off? do i need help? Love me here!
posted by Micah Dormann @ 12:16 PM
3 Comments:
I wish I had all the comforting and affirming words you desire and need to hear Micah. I don't have them. I do have similar feelings I believe. I doubt my abilities, the reasons why I do what I do. Deep inside of me, I know the Truth...I know God...I know what I do is right, but that doesn't change my doubting myself sometimes.
Sounds like you are encountering things that have shaken you a bit. But don't let doubts skew your vision of what God has called you to be. In all the doubts of who you are and why you do what you do...don't doubt the fact that God is there admist the confusion, pain, and lack of clarity in it all. You know the heart of the Creator...lean on His understanding of your entire situation and let Him guide you to the outcome He has planned for you. Keep the Faith Micah.
As a leader you will have days where things aren't clicking perfectly and something might happen that will shake you up, but never doubt God who has called you and is in you. He has prepared you for life a minister and life a leader...and you will continue to learn. Keep your heart soft for God to teach you. Though those days where someone or something may go completely wrong...remain strong in the knowledge that God has been there with you before, now, and will be forever. Situations come and go, but the strength that God can only give never ceases when you are in the center of His will. Keep in the center Micah. Dude, keep your head up. Keep the Faith, keep in God's will for your life. Your a stud and have my respect. I appreciate you and will keep you in thoughts and prayer. Peace
Yo bro,
Thanks for the gut-level honesty. I appreciate it.
The Apostle Paul says "Test everything." So much like you're doing in this post, I encourage you to question everything. Not in a cynnical detached kind of way, but in the kind of way that draws you to action. What is worth living for? What is worth acting on? Test everything.
Micah, Micah, Micah... Don't be honest! You can't doubt like that! You're reputation might be on the line if people read this! Isn't it funny how wrong this sound and yet how often we buy into it. It has to be real and us really believing for us to not get burntout on our ministry. Question away... but do it in the spirit of finding truth, of finding Jesus. Nowhere do i see in the Bible where someone who is questioning is told to just walk away from Jesus for awhile.. and yet that is what we so often do. I don't pity you one bit, but am excited to hear and learn from what you are going to learn through this. The beauty of some of obvious passages Prov 3:5-6, Matt6:33, Jer 29:13 is this. If you seek him, truly seek him, He promises to guide us and prevail... even through our weak humanness.
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