Performance-Based Me

I had a breakfast with a guy this morning that I've been looking forward to for a while now. He and his wife have become some of our really good friends, and have a kiddo who is a few months younger than Casen. He and I are going to start going through some mentoring/discipleship material I've been going through with several guys, and I've been excited about it. He and I come from two very different backgrounds and I think we will really be able to help each other stretch and grow.

This morning, though, I felt like I was really scattered. I've got a lot going on right now and haven't been sleeping well. Add that to the fact that we met at 6am, and you understand that my mind felt like oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar. He had some really great questions that I could have answered so much more articulately than I did. Instead I handled them about as awkwardly as a drunk blind nun trying to hit a curve ball.

It's easy for opportunities like that to get me down. I put pressure on myself that says if I'm not at my best, God can't work. If I don't "perform" well, God can't use me.

I have a routine on days that start like today: When performance-based me shows up, I sit down and re-read 1 Corinthians 4 and 2 Corinthians 4.

God doesn't need me to perform in order for Him to work. God is not sitting in heaven wringing His hands over my incoherent rambling this morning. He lets me be faithful (1 Corinthians 4:2), and uses my fragile intellect, emotions, words, and answers to demonstrate that the "power is of God, and not from us" (2 Corinthians 4:7). God will judge success according to a more vast timetable than my limited view, so I don't need to beat myself up for it before the time (1 Corinthians 4:5). I just keep on being as faithful as I can be, and trust in a sovereign, all-powerful God who can make sense out of botched opportunities.