Do you feel overlooked? Have you spent years of your life praying that one day, someone will see what you have to offer as valuable and significant? Are the gifts and talents within you wasting away because you can’t seem to find a place to use them? You are not alone.
The church is full of gifted, talented, called disciples who are frustrated and feel rejected by the lack of opportunity or room to use what God has given them to build up the Body and advance the Kingdom. Eventually, many of them choose to go where they will be valued and use their talent out in the world where it will be appreciated. The result is not only that they lose out, but that the church loses out as well.
Why? Week after week, we are encouraged to get involved in the ministry of the church and to express ourselves they way we have been uniquely gifted to do so. We are told never to back down from a dream God has placed in our hearts. Chase it. Pursue it. Live it. So we step out to respond to the call. And the door slams shut in our faces. “Thanks, but we don’t need what you have to offer”.
Someone more talented has already filled the spot. That is not the way we do things here. You don’t have the education or qualifications necessary. That is not really a priority for our ministry right now. We have tried that before and it never works. You have to be a member of the staff to do what you are asking to do. That will never work.
On and on it goes. Whatever the reason, the result is the same: we are left feeling worthless and without a place to belong.
Enter the spirit of competition. Remember when you were told to follow the call of God on your life? Then remember when you tried and you were rejected? The only thing left to do now is become better. Outwork, outperform, outshine. Then you will be noticed and you will be free to do what you long to do.
Approval from the right people is all that is standing between you and your dream. So you begin striving to become what they are looking for. Maybe it is your style they don’t like. That can be easily fixed. Your skill level? All it takes is a little hard work to improve on that. Perhaps you need influential connections. That is nothing a little networking won’t solve.
The more you work to be noticed, the more you feel utterly and completely insignificant. Your dream has now become a source of resentment, jealousy and hopelessness. Days are spent comparing yourself to others who seem to be more successful than you. How did they make it work? Why are they more accepted than you? What are you doing wrong? Did God ever call you to begin with?
It is a slippery slope from trying to walk in your calling to feeling rejected by man, to questioning your ability to hear the voice of God, to doubting the faithfulness of God. And it is all thanks to fostering a spirit of competition where there should only be unity.
Are you truly free to be who you are? Are you able to trust God to open the door for you when the time comes? Or are you wrapped up in the spiritual rat race, trying to earn approval and a place to belong?
Fire Starter 