Inadequacy
When we aren’t quite sure we have what it takes.
There have been many times in my life when it seemed I was circling back around, once again, to uncomfortable thoughts and feelings I was sure were long ago vanquished never to return.
The thoughts in this post came after hearing a young lady in a Bible study request prayer for her younger brother. He is about to graduate from college with a degree in economics but is feeling confused. School will soon end and he must now face the uncertain potentially humiliating task of searching for employment. He isn’t sure he has any skills an employer necessarily wants. He feels inadequate and is actually searching for his own significance.
Can you relate?
Let me describe this another way.
Transitioning from school to work is like taking a ride on a grand old Ferris Wheel. In the season of college you are riding to the top and as you rise higher the vista of life’s possibilities expand before your eyes. Everything looks possible. Life looks like a delectable oyster (for those who have taste for such things).
Eventually you are at the top of the ride and for a moment feel the exhilaration of your upper class position. There you sit gently swinging in space and briefly enjoying the illusion of conquest and mastery. Then the wheel moves again and you begin to descend backwards. Now what is most in view is the contraption that has been holding you up. Beauty and the expansive scenery have been replaced by an up-close view of glaring lights, wooden and metal struts, beams, and gears. And as you move closer to the ground (representing reality) you realize that this ride is coming to an end. Now it is time to step down and return to using your own legs and little skill-set to take you where you need to go. At this point the great Ferris Wheel has become another giant reminder just how small and insignificant we actually are — when by ourselves.
And that is my point. It is fair when we are young to be focused on our own growth and development, but as soon as possible, the healthiest and happiest among us will discover that life is best lived as a cooperative sport where we support and encourage one another.
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.
And be thankful.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
