Not enough

I was looking around the blogosphere today, and came across a little church that has deep connections to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Capitol Hill Baptist Church. Sounds like my cup of tea, right? Wrong.

These guys are amazing. They’re my age, but are already preaching and teaching with authority. They are smarter than me, more knowledgeable than me, more mature than me. To top it all off, they clearly love God more than I do.

This has been harder for me to accept than I want to admit. In the past, I always thought I had an advantage on others… I had read a few more books, and understood history a little bit better. Older folk were always impressed by how much I knew at such a young age.

But in these circles, I’m behind. By a lot. I got over it, but in the back of my mind always hoped that my passion and love for God would distinguish me among my peers. I wanted to offer God something unique and special… something that couldn’t be found elsewhere. Sorry, Charlie- I’m behind there too.

More and more I’m learning to admit to myself how much of a failure I am. I am weak, and my sin is great. Too often I’m passionate for God in the moment, but forget him in the ensuing hour. I’ll fight for truth, but forget faithfulness. I’m not only less intelligent and less well-read than other guys my age, I’m also less passionate. I don’t have much to offer.

I got some nice compliments today from some pastors I met at an ordination council. It felt good for about 5 minutes. But then I realized that it was a bit of a “big fish in a small pond,” situation. I thought I was unique because I travel in circles of people to whom this theological stuff is complex and distant, or at least rare. However, it’s kinda like a Chinese man in Michigan thinking he’s a great cook because his restaurant does good business; you can’t really say that until you’ve gone up against people who care about the same thing you care about. It’s then that you find out you’re mediocre at best.

Sometimes I wish God had a policy of telling us what would happen ahead of time. On days like today, I’m already embarrassed of how sub-par whatever future I offer to God will probably be.

Oh well. Trust and obey. God knows what he’s doing, and that needs to be enough.