Breaking Free from The Rules of Inadequacy

Today I have a testimony to share with you from my Flickr friend Andrew, he has a great testimony and it’s awesome to see the passion in his life. He has done some missions work and you can just tell that it has impacted him in big ways!

Testimony

I grew up in a very strong Christian family. We would always go to church and I was able to see Godly examples of life from either my family or the people at my church. But even so, I remember feeling from a very young age that I just didn’t think that I fit in very well. I wasn’t sure what it was at the time, but looking back now I know that it was a feeling of inadequacy, like I wasn’t living up to what was expected of me.

I have two older brothers, both of which I thought always did everything right, and of course my parents, and the other kids at my church- all of which I thought were living what I pictured as the perfect Christian life while I just…wasn’t. I remember very distinctly having thoughts that there was nothing that I could do that one of my brothers hadn’t already done, and that in all of they were better at than I possibly could be. So my natural reaction to these feelings of inadequacy that I had was to try to force myself to try harder and do things better.

Waterfall along Tanglefoot Lake hike by Brandon Peters

I built up a list of rules of the things I thought needed to be done for me to be a good Christian as well: I had to read my Bible so many times and pray so many times and say all the right things and never complain and always seem like I was super spiritual. And I tried. And I failed. There was no relationship, there was no passion and there was no reason for me to do any of those things. This just added to my sense of insecurity and inadequacy, as I felt that I failed at the very rules that I had built for myself. And I became just nothing more than an external show of what I thought Christianity was, going to church and pretending to follow my own rules, but just being so ashamed of how little I could.

I ended up hiding from others, and remember being so terrified that the other kids at my church or in my youth group would find me out as the fake that I felt that I was. While all of this was happening, other areas in my life started to slip into areas of sin. Again, looking back on this time, I feel like I was trying to find adequacy and confirmation through these sins. It almost always started as what I considered to be little sins that weren’t really that bad, but sin never ever satisfies and I would end up falling into deeper bondage to these sins. It turned into a vicious cycle. I felt inadequate and ashamed, so I would turn to a sin to try to find some sort of feeling of adequacy and relief from my pain. But of course the sin would not bring what I was truly looking for, and then I would feel even more guilt and inadequacy after committing the sin.

Repeat this cycle, over and over again. Oh believe me, I tried as hard as I could to get out, but it never lasted. At every church retreat or when we would have a powerful speaker, I would again build up my list of rules, feeling confident that I would be able to follow them this time around. But no matter how many times I tried or how many promises I made to myself, I just could not do it. It got so bad that there were several times when I thought very seriously about suicide, and even came close on a couple of occasions. I never was able to follow through with those thoughts, which in my mind at the time felt like I was chickening out of that as well and made me feel like even more of a failure. I didn’t realize that I was completely dead in my sin. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 says,

“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.” 1 Corinthians 6:9-10

When I read over this list, I realize that during this time of sin in my life I was guilty of committing every single one of those things, plus many more that are not listed. But it was so much more than just being guilty of committing these things, my sin nature and all of the things listed that it brought about defined me. It was so much more than me being guilty of pride, lust, greed, idolatry and shame – I was at my very core prideful, lustful, greedy, idolatrous and absolutely overwhelmed with shame.

This continued for a long time for me. I descended into more sin, but eventually it just became too much. I don’t feel like I can even put into words the despair and hopelessness that I had. The guilt and pain from my sins brought me to the end of myself, when it became clear that I was just fooling myself into thinking that it was based on my own rules and how hard I could try to follow them. After being brought so low, I could no longer deceive myself and finally realized that I needed something more. I needed someone more, so I turned to Jesus Christ in desperation and found that He is able to free me from the need to follow my own rules, because He has already completed the work on the cross for me. Through Him, I have found forgiveness for my past failures and sins and also freedom from the temptations and the power of sin that had ruled me for so long. Through Christ there is healing and power and joy. I have found that even though I may still be inadequate for some of the things that He may have planned for me, that He is always way more than adequate (2 Corinthians 3:4-5) and that His grace is so overwhelmingly sufficient even in spite of all my weaknesses (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Looking back at the list of sins that had defined me in 1 Corinthians 6, the verse then continues to say: “Such WERE some of you (now being written in the past tense); but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”

I am not perfect by any means. I still have to fight against my sinful nature daily and still have so much to learn about what it practically means to rely on God. I still find myself feeling fear at times instead of just fully trusting in Him. But I am no longer defined and ruled by my sins. God has created in me a new identity- and through His work on the cross I have been washed, sanctified and justified. WOW- praise His name. And I am confident that He who has started this work and brought me thus far will continue to bring it to perfection in the day of Christ Jesus.

The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'” -Matthew 4:3-4

Check out Andrew’s work here.