My Golden Calf

Last night as I was falling asleep I was meandering through thoughts in my mind about feeling inadequate.  Inadequacy is a state I have become familiar with in the past year.  There have been periods of my adult life I have felt quite put together, orderly, predictable, stable... all words to describe having it all under control.  But the last year has challenged that in me, and I am beginning to believe it is for the better.  I needed God to undo me to show me his reign in my life and to let me know that my idea of holding it all together was a thin film over the reality of chaos just out of sight.  Chaos, that is, without the one who holds all things in his firm grasp.

I was also thinking about, just as I can act like I'm in control in my world, I can do just the opposite as well, and act like because I am feeling inadequate, that I am powerless.  "Inadequate" may just be my backhanded way of saying, "God, there's nothing that can be done", as if my powerless has anything to do with His.  In my myopic view, stuck in self-absorption, I am saying,  

"I'm not big enough, so you must not be big enough either.  Move over God, I'm worshipping the twin idols of fear and self-pity.  I don't have enough room for your greatness."

I am beginning to realize that both extremes are really just different poles on the same line of idolatry.  I am either holding trust in my own self-sufficiency over God, or holding my inadequacy above his greatness.  In either case, I am taking my eyes off the one who longs to be Lord of my life, and who knows the plans he has for me, and replacing him with a thing that is powerless.

So I am trying to start fresh at being sensitive to the Spirit's guiding and not being so quick to think with grandiosity or despair.  I just ask that you pray for me that  I may be centered in God's will, find my value, meaning, and joy there, and that my life may be filled with fruit so that I can boast in what God has done in me. 

Big Enough-
by Ayiesha Woods