“For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.” -Romans 12:3
“For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” -1 Corinthians 4:7
Let me tell you a story of a self-conscious 17-year-old.
It was the first week of my senior year of high school, and I sat in Professor Donald Woodward’s AP Literature class. Professor Woodward was the kind of man who wore a white lab coat as a fashion statement and annunciated each syllable of “literature” as if he were reading it phonetically (“LIT-ur-ah-chur”). And even though I had him during junior year for a Psychology class, he still made me feel nervous.
Professor Woodward didn’t seem to take notice of me or seem to get the fact that writing and English were sort of “my thing.” In fact, he didn’t even know my name 95% of the time. I was determined that he would see me as the bright student that I was, bursting with all kinds of creative potential.
So when Professor Woodward began to brag on the one stellar student who had written an exemplary analysis paper on Wuthering Heights, I felt a satisfying smugness come over me. This was my moment. It had to be my paper. I was confident that it was.
“You all should look to Nolan Hughey as your example,” Professor Woodward finally announced.
Nolan??? My Nolan? My then boyfriend (now husband) was currently rocking his way through an upper level anatomy class with all hopes of being a physical therapist. He was supposed to stick to science. How dare he encroach upon my English writing territory? He affectionately listened to me as I cried in his car after school that day.
For the rest of the year, after Professor Woodward discovered that we were dating, I was labeled “Nolan’s lady in waiting” most of the time when he forgot my name. Which was a lot, mind you. I lived in the shadow of Professor Woodward’s new-found writing guru. And strangely, I don’t ever remember resenting Nolan for it. Instead, I was hopelessly disappointed in myself for not being good enough to keep up my writer persona.
Anyone who knows me even just a little would know that I like to write. I genuinely enjoy the process and find a lot of joy in a beautifully-crafted outcome. But what you may not know is just how much I’ve placed my identity in this facet of my life. I’d like to say that I’ve matured a lot in this way since I was that 17-year-old in Professor Woodward’s class, but in many ways I haven’t. Writing became such an integral part of who I was that, ironically, it drove me to stop writing for fear that I would somehow mess up my image if I produced one mediocre piece. I started a blog in college just to stop it. My own private journal pages grew emptier over the years.
I recently listened to a sermon on Exodus 3 which explored God’s identity as “I Am” and our relation to Him in light of that. When Moses asks who he is to go before Pharaoh, the LORD does not give him a self-confidence pep talk. In fact, God doesn’t highlight any of Moses’ accolades or skills. Instead, He simply said “I will be with you” (vs. 12). Moses’s confidence in his work would be rooted in the power of His God, not himself. He (and we) are simply average.
But “average” scares me. Everything in me yearns to be exceptional. The truth, though, is that acknowledging myself as average should be freeing. If I’m just ordinary, then I don’t have to create outlandishly lofty goals for myself and then wallow in despair when I fail to meet them. If I’m just ordinary, I can stop looking at myself and start looking to my extraordinary Savior.
So I’m cultivating the practice of writing again. I’m acknowledging the fact that everything I produce will be less that perfect. That’s hard and I don’t like it. And if you want to spend your time picking my work apart for logical inconsistencies or structural weakness or (God forbid) grammatical errors, then go for it. I’m not going to anymore. Because I’d like to think that this time, it’s going to be about something bigger than feeding my own ego. I want to learn how to use this gift by grounding it in my Lord’s strength instead of my own.
I’ll fail at that, I’m sure. I’ll revert back to writing for my own glory and fame in a matter of days and I’ll need to repent again. Starting this blog is just my first step of obedience.
I’d love it if you’d join me. Has thinking too highly of yourself caused you to delay obedience in some way? Rest in knowing that He will be with you, and that is enough.
Cultivate. 