I started identifying how much of my life was about making sure the right people were pleased with me. And as this became more and more clear, i realized how less and less pleased i was with myself. What happens is our lives become so heavily orientated around the expectations of others that we become more and more like them and less and less like ourselves. We become split.
I was split.
I had this person i knew i was made to be, yet it was mixed in with all of these other… people. As the lights were turned on, i saw i had all of this guilt and shame because i wasn’t measuring up to the image of the perfect person i had in my head. I had this idea of a superpastor - all of these messages i had been sent over the years that i had received and internalized.
Superpastor is always available to everyone and accomplishes great things but always has time to stop and talk and never misses anyone’s birthday and if you are sick he’s at the hospital and you can call him at home whenever you need advice and he loves meetings and spends hours studying and praying and yet you can interrupt him if you need something - did i mention he always puts his family first?
Now you are starting to see some of my issues.
I am not superpastor.
I don’t do well in an office nine to five.
I jump out of my skin if i am in meetings too long.
I am institutionally challenged.
But I am not defined by what i am not. And understanding this truth is a huge part of becoming whole. I had to stop living in reaction and start letting a vision for what lies ahead pull me forward.
I began to sort out with those around me what God did make me to do. What kept coming up was that my life work is fundamentally creative in nature. And creating has its own rhythms, its own pace. Inspiration comes at strange times when you create. And inspiration comes because of discipline. And discipline comes when you organize your life in specific intentional ways. It means saying yes to certain things and no to other things. And then sticking to it.
I had this false sense of guilt and subsequent shame because i believed deep down that i wasn’t working hard enough. And i believed the not-working-hard-enough lie because i didn’t function like superpastor, who isn’t real anyway.
So i had one choice - I had to kill superpastor.
I had to take him out back and end his pathetic existence.
I went to the leaders of our church and shared with them my journey as it was unfolding. I told them that if they needed to release me and find superpastor, I understood. If we don’t know who we are or where we’re trying to go, we put the people around us in an uncomfortable position. They are doing the best they can with what they have, but sometimes we haven’t given them much, have we?
And when we begin to pursue becoming the people God made us to be, we give them more and more to go on.
I meet so many people who have superwhatever rattling around in their head. They have this person they are convinced they are supposed to be, and their superwhatever is killing them. They have this image they picked up over the years of how they are supposed to look and act and work and play and talk, and it;s like a voice that never stops shouting in their ear.
And the only way to not be killed by it is to shoot first.
Yes, that is what i meant to write.
You have to kill your superwhatever.
And you have to do it right now.
Because your super whatever will rob you of today and tomorrow and the next day until you take it out back and end its life.
Go do it.
Now.
