We’ve probably all taken those online customer surveys where we’re
asked to rate business services on a scale from one to ten.
Do you realize that you also very likely take an internal
survey of yourself? On a scale from zero to ten, where do you think you stand?
Where does your value come from? Do you base your value on what others say
about you? If so, you will be an emotional pretzel on the roller-coaster of
opinion. Or maybe you rate yourself
based on personal performance or appearance.
Whether we know it or not, we all have internal “self-talk.”
How do you feel when someone has more
success than you? Jealous? Like a
nobody?
Who wants to feel like a zero? “Not I,” said the little red hen.
Recently Marlene Bagnull of Write His Answers Ministries
and head of the Greater Philadelphia Christian Writer’s Conference sent out an
e-mail that I greatly appreciated. What
she wrote expressed conclusions I had previously also come to as a writer. I want to share excerpts of her e-mail here
to illustrate my point of self-evaluation:
“Do you feel called to ‘write His answer' and yet struggle
with self-doubts?" …She writes further that many times she almost gave up
because of these thoughts: “Why would anyone want to read what I wrote? What made me think I could write for the
Lord? I wasn’t qualified! How could He possibly use someone who was
only a high school graduate?”
Marlene quoted Joel Rosenberg from an interview he gave to Assist
News in 2010. He had ten years of
political failure in Washington
D.C. Rosenberg , yet I am not a lawyer, a dentist,
a doctor, an acupuncturist, a chiropractor, an accountant or even a stockbroker…
I write ‘Op-Eds’ that people don’t read. I write speeches people don’t listen to; the
only thing I know how to do is write and clearly badly. But these are my loaves and fishes and I don’t
want to be a failure; I want to be a blessing.
So I told the Lord, ‘I want to be a servant of yours, Lord
Jesus, so could you take these loaves and fishes, limited though they be, and
would you break them, and bless them, and somehow feed people with them.”
I was so encouraged by those words. You see, I was beginning to fall into the
trap of comparing myself to other writers, wanting to see a larger number of
blog followers, more comments, more book sales, more success, etc. The pride of life can be so subtle.
When the Holy Spirit showed me what I was wishing, I quickly
turned away from that kind of thinking and gave it all to Him. Shortly after that, Marlene’s e-mail came
through as a comforting confirmation that God was indeed going to bless my
loaves and fishes. (Figuratively taken
from the story of Jesus feeding five thousand men plus women and children with
only five loaves of bread and two fish (Matthew 14:13-21).
I am content to obey the call of God to write, and leave the
results up to Him. I do what I can to
market my writing, and I work very hard.
I am diligent. But I don’t
compare myself to others anymore and base my value as a writer or a person on
them.
God will also take your loaves and fishes and multiply them
to bless many. You don’t need to feel
like a zero. The Lord God speaks to us
so beautifully in Psalm 139; the entire psalm is to be savored slowly. In Christ, you are a ten! You are complete in Him.
God bless you, dear reader!
Copyright © 2013
Elaine Beachy
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