Lately I’ve been feeling inadequate.
Not enough. Deficient. Incomplete. Lacking.
I’ve felt this way before. For instance, there was when I was trying to serve people in my host country but often coming up short in my ability to navigate the language and culture and ministry expectations. And now I’m back in my passport home trying to serve people who are new to the US, working on their own navigations. And I frequently get tripped up by the red tape and details and deadlines—even though it’s my system we’re dealing with.
It’s challenging to be in a position where you feel in over your head, and when you’ve put yourself there by choice, it adds to the complicated emotions. It all can easily become overwhelming. It helps, though, to develop an attitude of humility—the kind of humility Christ modeled when “he made himself nothing, by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness” (Philippians 2:7 NIV), and came to our world as a baby, as one of us, even the least of us. He “condescended.”
Today, we warn against condescension, but the meaning of condescend was originally to climb down to be with someone of a lower rank or position. Back then, that was considered a good thing, and the word was used to describe Jesus’ journey to be with us. It was only later that condescend took on the negative connotation of making a show of superiority.
Finish reading at A Life Overseas. . . .
[photo: “Ladder from Above,” by Erik Norvelle used under a Creative Commons license]
Clearing Customs 