Mission Accomplished

Well, another semester has ended and I got my grades back. Three A's and one A-. This puts me in a really good position to graduate seminary with honors (3.8 GPA or higher). This was a really tough semester since it was the first one after I became a supervisor at UPS, and I was also trying to study church planting, and I was building a website and blog. I'm pretty sure there was some divine action going on behind the scenes, so a big thanks goes to the Holy Spirit for those grades.

Boy, I tell you there is nothing like messing up in front of a group of people. I was leading worship today and I really messed up some words, important words at that. It was totally due to my not formatting the song sheet like I normally do. It was a new song and the lyrics were way too small. Lesson learned. I was talking about how so many Christmas songs talk about the Christmas story but don't talk about atonement and the purpose of Christmas. So where did I mess up? Of course, on the words that dealt with the atonement! I think Satan may have had a part in that, since I did not pray like I normally do. By the way, the song was called "Joy Has Dawned." It's really great when the words are sung right!

I do not know which is more disappointing to me: that I distracted from the worship of God, or that I publicly displayed my imperfections. I'm afraid I'm honestly more concerned about the latter. I have a pretty big codependency streak inside me that I hate. I want so bad for people to like me, and I really take rejection hard. I often feel that respect and friendship are based on my abilities, and if I don't perform then people will stop being my friend.

Rich Mullins wrote a song called "Brother's Keeper," and the chorus goes:

I will be my brother's keeper
Not the one who judges him.
I won't despise him for his weakness
I won't regard him for his strength.

I'm afraid that the reason I am so bothered by messing up in front of people is that I'm afraid that they will judge me in the same way I have judged others, and I probably deserve it, but I don't like it.

So let's agree not to judge each other on merit, but in love and forgiveness, on the basis of how Jesus feels about us. And feel free to throw this back in my face whenever I need it!