“Fear Of Not Doing Well”

 

 

In my prayer and reflection time this morning, I read the following:

 

“Grant me to see my ignorance, not knowing how or what to pray, my unsavoriness, not delighting in, but loathing to speak for thee, my pride, because I would not speak what I could from fear of not doing it well…” The Valley of Vision, page 363.

 

While you and I don’t use this form of English anymore in our daily conversation, I find it helpful to have a prayer book, such as The Valley of Vision, that maintains the English used when the prayers were first written. Why? Because it slows me down and forces me to drive s-l-o-w-l-y. When I read slowly it is more likely that I will reflect on the words, the phrases, the construction of a paragraph or verse, the relationship of the words to each other, the paragraphs and verses to each other.

 

This morning I was struck by, “my pride, because I would not speak what I could from fear of not doing it well.”

 

Is this true of you? Can you relate to these words? They are true of me and I can easily relate to them – I have confronted them many times in my life, sometimes to God’s glory, sometimes not.

 

There are a few root reasons why we don’t share Jesus Christ with others; our lack of love, our failure of obedience, our ignorance of who Christ is in us and who we are in Christ, our ignorance of our calling in Christ to lay our lives down for others…and our pride. Can you think of other reasons we don’t share the Gospel?

 

All of us who know Jesus Christ, who are in a relationship with Him, have something to tell others. When we use, “I don’t’ know what to say,” or “I’m afraid I’ll be asked a question that I don’t know the answer to,” as an excuse not to share Jesus Christ, much of the time what we are really talking about is our pride – we don’t want to be humiliated or rejected because of Jesus Christ. Let’s remind ourselves that Jesus Christ presented a prefect witness for God and He was rejected and crucified.

 

Witnessing to others for Jesus Christ always entails the questions, “Am I willing to be identified with Jesus Christ in His humility? Am I willing to be humbled before others for the sake of others and the glory of Jesus Christ?”

 

When Peter wanted to spare Jesus rejection, suffering, and death Jesus replied, “Get behind me Satan, you do not value the things of God but the things of man” (Matthew 16:21 – 23).

 

God uses our imperfect words and deeds for His glory, for what other words and deeds can we possibly offer? When people see God’s love coming through our imperfect words and actions, then they will know that it is God who should be receiving glory and not us. Why would we have a problem with this?

 

Times without number I have had to make the decision to reject my pride and ego – to flee from them! – and imperfectly share the love of Jesus with others…whether they appreciated it or not, whether it was socially acceptable or not, whether it was the right time and right place (in the eyes of the world) or not.

 

I am still…after all these years…learning to do this.

 

What about you?