Eric Wilson - 2013
Sadly as of late, it felt that everything I was doing was either just “vapors” or “tilting at windmills.” I must admit that I have struggled quite a bit from time to time to make connections from any of my actions to any substantial meaning. Recently, this has weighed even heavier as the year comes to a close and I reflect on what and why I do things.
Sadly as of late, it felt that everything I was doing was either just “vapors” or “tilting at windmills.” I must admit that I have struggled quite a bit from time to time to make connections from any of my actions to any substantial meaning. Recently, this has weighed even heavier as the year comes to a close and I reflect on what and why I do things.
To this point, my biggest fear recently is not that people would slander me from my making a stand, but that someone would tell the truth and discover that I’m some sort of fraud. I write and proclaim traits and mantras on #self-improvement and #leadership as if I understood them, but secretly I read them and question if that is or ever could be me. Leaders are something I look at and envy (which is a trait true leaders should not exhibit) and wish I could affect change like them. I look at the contributions others have made and wonder if I have the abilities or fortitude to do the same if called.
It was in this place of discouragement where I felt unprepared, inept, irrelevant, and that I couldn’t make a difference – that I had the most reassuring moment of clarity. I was right! I’m not qualified, I’m not prepared, I’m not relevant, and it doesn’t make a difference what I do. So, how can comfort and good news come from this revelation?
Partly because I could now see the similarity and resemblance of how Christ comes to His children. It is only in this condition of despair and inadequacy that you see your need and His grace. It is this place where He reveals you are right and everything you thought about yourself and what you could do is much worse than you even thought. Your eyes are opened to the knowledge that everything earthly is “vapors.” You despise much more your intentions than your actions, and fear if anyone could see your heart they would rightfully condemn you as a hypocrite. You realize you are powerless and come the only way you can be accepted: naked and humbled. So, how can comfort and good news come from this revelation?
God didn’t come to save the well and able but the sinners who cannot save themselves. If there is anything I could add or do, then I do not need Him at all. The truth revealed is that there is nothing I can add, nothing I can do, and nothing I can look to in myself, but everything I could look to Him for. Christ came and died for His elect and completed salvation.
That is my comfort – if I had to trust anything in myself, there would be no security in that. That is my comfort – my response and actions are out of love, not out of guilt. That is my comfort – my actions are not trying to create a result, but a #faith that He has already fulfilled to an end. That is my comfort – it doesn’t matter what I think I can do, it matters what He done.
It is not weakness to accept helplessness and total depravity, but it is here that a person derives great strength from his dedication to a purpose that is greater than himself. It is not fatalism to accept powerlessness and predestination, but it is here that a person works more diligently and empathetically in benevolence.
So what if anything does this have to do with how I have felt or am doing; possible nothing or everything.
And – while I very well may be “tilting at windmills” and possibly never see any results from what I do – I will keep doing these things and being a servant wherever possible. The only thing I pray is that I look less to the results, even less to myself, and look only to the true Author and Finisher.
