Equipped

I have never really felt like I fit, not really. I’m not talking about struggling to make friends. I have made plenty of close friends across the years, quite easily. I’m not talking about standing out in the way that I look. I am an extraordinarily average fellow. You can lose me in the crowd. I am not even talking about the way I talk. Yes, I am not from around here, but my accent is normal.  It is the rest of the people in the Northeast who talk strange. On almost every level, I am just like everyone else, and yet I still have struggled with the sense that I don’t fit, not really.

I suppose some of my sense of being a less than a good fit comes from my penchant for seeing the world the way I do. For as long as I can remember, I have always found myself to be a person who sees what everyone else sees and yet comes to a different conclusion about the nature of things. I was always the one in school who raised my hand and said, “Yes, but could it not also be that. . .” I never could quite tell if my thoughts inspired my teachers in their calling or made them conspire as to my demise. I never could tell for sure. What was clear is that they didn’t know what to do with me.

I suppose the same was true of most of my experiences growing up. It seemed that no one knew quite what to do with me. What do you do with a fellow who doesn’t toe the party line? What do you do with a child who has a million questions? What do you do with the teenager who loves football but asks for Grey’s Anatomy books for Christmas and reads biographies of brain surgeons? Yep, that was me in ninth grade. What do you do with a kid who makes appointments with the pastor to discuss the finer nuances of his theological position, all for fun, not because of a disagreement? Yep, that was me too. I know he didn’t know what to do with me!

Over the years it has become very clear to me that I am not like everyone else. I don’t think the same thoughts. I don’t fit easily in any one position or platform. I speak English, but some people have even told me I speak a different language. I am not sure what to make of that one other than to add it to my “not like everyone else” pile. For some people not being like everyone else is something to be worn as a badge of honor. We live in a day that flaunts individuality. But my individuality was never a badge of honor for me. It has also been my mark of shame.

It seems that somewhere along the way I got ahold of the idea that being different was not something to be desired. Maybe it was in the consistent elevating of certain types of individuals, or maybe it was the constant realization that no one knew or knows what to do with me. Whatever the source, I got the idea that being different was bad, and not just bad, but devastating to my person. What I mean is this. Because I was different, I was useless. You see, to be useful, valuable, a person of worth and influence, you had to fit a certain mold, and people seemed to delight in telling me that I didn’t fit any mold. You can imagine my chagrin when God called me into full-time ministry.

I will never forget God’s call. It was one of the few times that I can say I audibly heard God. God said, “I want you to be a pastor.” Well, that just wasn’t possible because I knew what pastors looked like. I knew what pastors did. I knew what they talked like. And guess what? I didn’t fit that mold, so I told God so. I told him, “I can’t be a pastor. I don’t fit. That isn’t me.” To which God responded that I didn’t have to be like them, I just had to be me.

That call came to me twenty years ago this past October and this June it will be twenty years that I have been engaged in some form of full-time ministry. I got the first part of the call, but I have struggled with the second. I have spent the better part of those twenty years wrestling with the sense that I just don’t fit, mostly because people just don’t know what to do with me and that this is somehow a shameful thing.

What do you do with a pastor who doesn’t easily fit into a theological position? What do you do with a pastor who refuses to toe a party line? What do you do with a pastor that looks at the same thing other pastors see and then says, “Yes, but what about. . . ?” What do you do with that kind of pastor? Well, I suppose folks are still trying to figure it out. What I have spent the better part of twenty years figuring out is how I can be a pastor and yet be so different. For almost twenty years I have worn my individuality as a mark of shame, praying, praying, praying that maybe God in his grace would make me into a real pastor, into someone who fits the mold. So far, no dice.

God doesn’t seem to want to answer affirmatively to that prayer, but I am discovering that that doesn’t mean that God hasn’t answered. Lately, God seems to be affirming that I am different and that my difference isn’t a badge of shame. Rather, my differences are God-given. I didn’t choose them. I would not have chosen them. They were given to me, given to me for a purpose, a reason. Sometimes I catch that reason as I look backwards across twenty years and see that I was in places where what was needed was anything but someone who fit the mold. It is in those moments that I glimpse some of why I am different and I tentatively wear my badge of individuality. But only for a moment. The next, “You talk a different language” brings the mark of shame right back up. I guess you could say I am a work in progress.

As God speaks to me about my own struggle with being different, I am discovering that I am not alone. I am not the only work in progress. Here and there I find people who are willing to admit that they too don’t feel like they fit. Just like me, they don’t fit the mold and have worn their differences as a mark of shame, slinking back into the shadows afraid that someone will notice and point out that they don’t fit. I have a suspicion that these brave souls are but the tip of the iceberg of a wider segment of God’s people who know they are different but are too afraid to speak. To those of you who, like me, know that you are one of a kind I say this: Don’t hide. Don’t hang back. We need you. The world needs you. God made you just the way you are and placed you where you are because what is needed is anything but someone who fits the mold.

A fellow traveler,

Blake

What’s my next step?

We encourage you to consider engaging in the following as a way of handing off faith in your family.

Plan a service activity: God made us to make something of our world. As a family, consider planning an activity in which you might act upon this truth. This activity could be as simple as planting a tree, cleaning a neighbor’s yard, or it might be more complex like engaging in a short-term volunteer project. Be sure to chat before and after your family activity about the reasons behind your service. You are serving because God has called us to engage our world in positive, redemptive ways (Ephesians 2.10).  

We encourage you to consider engaging in the following as a way of deepening your own faith.

Consecrate yourself and your place of service to God: God made you to make something of your world. He made you who you are and placed you where you are because he knew what was needed most. You don’t have to fit any mold or be anyone other than who you are to make something of your world. This week, we encourage you to spend some time consecrating yourself and your place of service to God. You might do this by imagining where you live and work, or you might physically go to the place where you live and work. In your mind, or physically, let your eyes roll over the items and people that make up your world and place of service. Give yourself to God, offering yourself to him as an instrument grace made to make something of your world. Thank him for making you who you are. Thank him that he knew best when he made you. Ask that he be glorified and his kingdom grown through you.