Below are some thoughts of mine about feeling too weak and inadequate for God to use you, based on a sermon I preached on September 4th out of Judges 6 and 7. I truly hope you will be blessed and encouraged.

The last few weeks have really tested my faith in God and his leading in my life. I don't think I have ever felt so inadequate or under prepared for God's mission than I have in my entire life. I have felt weak. I have felt out of place. I have felt maxed out, running on overload, and sprinting toward burn out just because I am trying to pursue God's calling in my life, but feel like I don't have what it takes to really succeed. And in my conversations with people lately, I have discovered that I am not the only one who feels this way.

This idea of being inadequate has been quite overwhelming to me until I rediscovered the account of Gideon in Judges 6 and 7. This narrative describes the situation of Gideon's almost laughable weakness and the impossible mission God had called him to.

I love this because God asked the most obscure and under-qualified person in all of Isreal (literally) to free his entire nation from serious oppression by a neighboring country. As the scene unfolds in this passage, the reader slowly becomes aware of the depths of Gideon’s inadequacy for the task, even to the point of God removing the little adequacy he does possess - the small army of Israel. The tension slowly begins to build as the storyline rolls out.

When we get to the climax of the tension in Jdg. 7:7-8, God adds one final level of impossibility to the mission: "Win this battle with only 300 soldiers...and they will be the worst soldiers in your army." Here, we are given a view of Gideon at his most inadequate point.

But at the height of Gideon’s inadequacy and weakness, God shows his awesome power and takes over the scene. When Gideon goes to fight against the enemy, God completely spooks them and they start fighting themselves until there is literally no battle left to fight. God won the day as Gideon looked on. I love this because, throughout this whole ordeal, 0% of the solution to Gideon’s crisis came from Gideon. Gideon wasn’t the savior; God was! But Gideon's victory was on the other side of faith (cf. Heb. 11:32-33).

One of the most amazing things that I have learned from this passage is that God wins with the weak. He wins with those who are inadequate and unequipped. For Gideon, God's victory was much closer than he realized because it was right in the middle of his weakness. And the same is true for you. His victory in your life and in your situation isn’t missing. God never passed you up. But maybe there is something that, by faith, your hands need to let go of. His victory is on the other side of your faith. And his victory will be accomplished through your weakness...not in spite of your weakness.

Maybe in your life right now, this very week or month, you have been given way more than you can handle. And you feel like you’re crumbling under the weight of it all. You feel inadequate. You think that no one cares what you say, or that you're not strong enough to handle all of this, or you don't have the right training to handle it all.

I am here to tell you today that victory and hope are here! God wants to open your eyes to the spiritual reality all around you. Your victory is much closer than you think! God saw Gideon and called him a mighty man of valor before the victory was ever manifest or visible. God looked at Gideon and saw his victory, not his fear.

And he looks at you and sees your victory. He sees your sufficiency. He sees your power. He sees your beauty. He calls you victorious and mighty! And he will win in your life! In Christ, you are more than a conqueror. But you need to embrace your weakness and inadequacy because it is only in your inadequacy that you will experience God’s victory and freedom. 

The victory comes only when you let go of your own adequacy. The confidence comes only when you let go of your worry and anxiety (cf. 2 Cor. 3:5) because comes God wins with the weak.

I was up late last night thinking about what it really means for me to follow Jesus and why it even matters. I was processing what the point of it all even is and how I could articulate this to someone who doesn't quite get the point of following Jesus. And though I feel like it's kind of weird for me to share this simplified story on a blog post, but I think it is important to be able to have a version of your own story that you have processed and then condensed so you can genuinely talk about it anywhere.

This is my story...in a very, very small nutshell:

I was 3 years old when I became a follower of Jesus. So my life before Jesus consisted of learning to walk, run, and ski. However, I distinctly remember the exact time and place when and where I put my trust in Jesus. I was in the hallway between my bedroom and the kitchen. I was there on the ground talking with my dad about Jesus and salvation and I decided right then that this was a life I wanted.

Even though, I was young when I became a follower in Jesus, that simple decision has had a profound impact on my life. I can’t claim that I was messed up before Jesus began to rule my life and then I changed because I didn’t have a ton of will power before 3 years old, and because I have been messed up pretty much my entire life - even after becoming a follower of Jesus. 

But the thing that has profoundly impacted my life is the reality of grace in every space of my life. I can never outrun the grace of God and I can never out-sin the grace of God, no matter how many times I think I have. Knowing that there is a God with a love so vast and inclusive as to love me to the point of death has captured my fascination and continually draws me to Jesus. 

Even though it is taking me a long time and the process is very messy, I am slowly becoming more like Jesus and I wouldn’t trade this life for an easier one. I can be real with a God who will never give up on me. I can have the hope of glory. And I can walk in confidence, knowing that my massive list of imperfections has already been forgiven and forgotten. And now I can know the God of the entire Universe...on a personal level! And this makes it worth it all.

The verses that have left the biggest mark on my life are Romans 5:8...

"God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!"

... and 2 Corinthians 3:5...

"Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God!"

What's your story?

A candle lit in darkness,

The glowing light of One,

Pushing through the shadows -

The Prince of Light had come.

His glory is among us.

The evil rule is done.

The darkness is retreating;

Our Prince of Light has come.

His presence is inviting;

Around Him is no fear.

There is no need for hiding;

My Prince of Light is here!

I tend to wander around in this thing called faith. I often figure things out as I am going, and it can be really frustrating, sometimes, to feel like everyone else knows more about following Jesus than I do

.

It is a struggle every day knowing that I am not as close to God as I really wish I could be. It is a struggle every wanting to see and hear this God that I try to follow. But then, when I am honest about my struggle, I am comforted by the assurance that I am not the only one who has ever been wrecked over this. 

There have been many saints who have wandered through these same murky waters. There are two lives in particular that I really look up to because they have traveled the lonely road of trying to figure out what it means to live for God despite not knowing what they were doing. These are my heroes.

1. St. Augustine

Growing up in Northern Africa, Aurelius Augustinus (aka Augustine) didn't have a lot of money. His parents spent more on his schooling than they could really afford. Augustine had a lot of second-rate school teachers in Thagaste. 

After a while, his family was able to afford to send him to Carthage, the best place in the world at the time to get a great education. But while he was there, he couldn't sit still. Though his mom prayed for him all the time, he had an insane craving for pleasure. He found himself a girl who became his concubine for many years. With this unnamed woman he had a son, Adeodatus. That same year, Augustine's father died. 

For many years, even though he was pursuing a higher understanding of religion, he couldn't shake his lifestyle of wanting more pleasure. This was his life for many years. But after a lot of frustrated searching and anxiety, Augustine had a crazy vision in his back yard. Before him he saw Lady Continence, who told him to take a leap of faith. He had been so agitated in body and mind that the vision came as a release. When he overheard the phrase "pick up and read" from a child at a nearby house, he grabbed his book of the Apostle Paul and read a passage. It seemed to be talking specifically to him. 

After that, he gave up all his worldly dreams. He quit his teaching job. He left Carthage, and the following Easter, he was baptized by Bishop Ambrose in Milan. Augustine and his mother decided to return to Africa, where they felt that they would be able to do the most good for God. There, he was very active in his church, and wrote a lot of things for the church so they could understand the Bible better. 

Over the last 17 years of his life, he had lost his father, his mother, and his son. He also lost his young, ambitious dreams of gaining the whole world. But he gained something far more important - a life that mattered and a hope that carried him through everything. He gained Jesus.

2. Rich Mullins

Rich Mullins was a musical prodigy who rose to Christian music fame and fortune only to walk away and live on a Navajo reservation. 

An artistic genius, raised on a tree farm in Indiana by a callous father, Rich wrestled all of his life with the brokenness and crippling insecurity born of his childhood. A lover of Jesus and a rebel in the

church, Rich refused to let his struggles with his own darkness tear him away from a God he was determined to love. As he struggled with success in Nashville and depression in Wichita, Rich desired most of all to live a life of honest and reckless faith amidst a culture of religion and conformity.

He was a prophet and a poet and a beggar, more comfortable with the homeless than the wealthy, more in love with Jesus than religion, more interested in the music than the song. He felt too much, and held too much. He searched desperately his whole life for a way to belong down here, but he never did. He was just passing through.

He said at one of his concerts one time, 

“I’m all the time being asked by people, ‘How do you feel closer to God?’ And I kind of always want to say, ‘I don’t know.’ When I read the lives of most of the great saints, they didn’t necessarily feel very close to God. When I read the Psalms, I get the feeling like David and the other psalmists felt quite far from God for most of the time. Closeness to God is not about feelings. Closeness to God is about obedience. It’s just as simple as that.”

Because of his life of love, Shane Claiborne said this about him,

“Rich Mullins is one of the most interesting people I’ve ever known. Interesting because he was honest — not perfect. He made you feel like Jesus was part of the band, telling stories around the fire, laughing with you at the bar. He made you feel like you could own your darkness and be honest with your doubts. He knew that inside each of us there is a sinner and a saint at war, and on good days the saint prevails, and on bad days –Jesus loves sinners. He was as winsome as a kid and as wise as a chief. This film captures the life of one of the most important people in the history of modern evangelicalism, a ragamuffin that our children and our grandchildren need to know about.”

This was a man who loved God no matter how he felt, no matter what other Christians were doing, and no matter what lies he heard from the enemy. He was committed to following Jesus no matter the cost.

And I, too, want that to be said of my life.