Personal Relection

This afternoon I’m going to be delving into why I can step out in such extreme faith in other ares of my life, but I am afraid of a lack of finances. Why am I so stressed out that my ribs would go out? 

Any stress I am experiencing goes to my back and, if it gets too bad, it throws out a rib. That’s where I am at the moment - stuck laying down because a rib went out. This is the first day I’ve been able to sit up in a while. My rib hasn’t gone out since 2006.

So getting right into it, clearly there are burdens in my own life that I should be giving to God that I am not. Last week when the financial breakthrough came, I was incredibly relieved. However, in that moment I saw the stress I was under for what it was and there was a large portion of the stress that wasn’t affected by the miracles of provision.

So what is it? My thinking that leadership is intercession; sharing in the pain of the people under you? Or my false assumption that I have to carry everyone on my back and my faith?

I have a problem. I expect that I will sacrifice, give up everything, pray, have faith etc, but I don’t expect the people around me to do the same thing. Naturally this means that I will be carrying burdens God never meant for me to carry. And it’s a fatal flaw in my discipleship… If I don’t teach people to do it all, what am I really teaching them? Christian life without sacrifice? I’ve always been shocked at how much health and wealth the American church preaches in Africa without meaning to… Have I done the same thing without meaning to?

If I preach the good and not the sacrifice and the bad, am I really creating full disciples out of the people under me? What happens when I leave? Will they be prepared? To the outside world I am a tremendous success but to me it feels like I’ am just discovering that I have dropped the ball on the most important part of God’s call on my life.

Paternalism - doing things for other people that they should be doing themselves. It’s our biggest enemy here and I thought I was doing well, only to realize its roots stretch deeper than I thought.

Ugh… I think the first step is to bring my team in on the issues we face at the moment. I need to give them the opportunities to sacrifice like I have had, in time as well as in finances. And I need to be putting them in situations where it is actually possible they fail and I don’t bail them out.