Not too long ago I was having lunch with a friend, (another Pastor), and he was telling about a speaker he had recently went to see. As he recanted his experience of seeing and listening to this man, you could tell how deeply the experience affected him. It was obviously a defining moment in his life and he was adamant about not walking away from the experience unchanged. I have much admiration for this attitude of his and have really let his response to that experience speak into my life as well.
When the speaker was finished and the event was drawing to a close, my friend approached him to speak with him. As he told me about his conversation with the man something he said struck me. He said he told the man, "Whatever it is that you have, I want it." I have heard that statement before over and over again actually and usually not in the same way that my friend meant it. I know what my friend meant when he said it and I admire his tenacity in going our and trying to become who he was made to be. But usually when I hear the statement, "Whatever it is you have, I want it," it means something else.
In the Pentecostal environments I have been in, this statement usually has something to do with obtaining some gift or power instilled by the Holy Spirit. There have been several "movements of the Spirit" over the past 15 years or so and that is when I hear this statement most. The problem with this statement is that it is the very definition of envy, which the Bible tells us is a sin. This puts me in an awkward place when I hear the statement.
For me, the idea of wanting what someone else has is an issue of discontent with what you do have. Even when it comes to Spiritual gifts, which are good things, it creates an attitude of discontent. When we want the gifts and abilities that God has given someone else, what we are saying is that we are not happy with the gifts and abilities that He has given us. We are saying that we would rather have what God wants for others than what God designed for us. This can be such a destructive way to view things.
In almost every ministry position I've held, paid or unpaid, I have made this error. I have tried to be someone else. Someone I wasn't created to be. I modeled my speaking style after someone else, my speaking content after someone else, my administrative strategy after someone else, my mentoring style after someone else, and in doing so I left no trace of myself in any of it. This only works for so long. The person I really was invariably began to come out, often to the detriment of the persona I was trying to create. One day I decided to stop trying to be a carbon copy of my mentors and only recently have I really begun to get a sense of who I am in ministry. This process is ongoing still today as I try to glean lessons and wisdom from what my mentors have taught me rather than try to become my mentors themselves.
To give you an example of what I mean I need to tell you about one of my mentors. His name is Billy and he is a natural born mentor. He invests himself fully into people and sometimes even gets hurt because of it. He feels deeply for people and because of this he bears their burdens with them. It also makes him a bit of crier but we won't get into all of that. Because Billy is so gifted at connecting with and raising up others, I tried to model myself after him when I was attempting to mentor others. The problem with this is that, even though Billy and I have some similarities, we are very different people. So my trying to become him was actually destructive to my goal of mentoring others. What I am now learning to do is take the things I learned from him and altar them to fit my personality and skill-set rather then altar my personality and skill-set to fit the lessons. Lessons from him like, "Be intentional about bringing them into your world," or "Ask them the tough questions," are easily transferable into any context and I missed the point years ago when he taught me these things.
I am finally in a place where I am not only content with who God is making me into but excited about it. Billy is one of many mentors whose lessons are paying off huge dividends currently because I have learned the hard lesson of being who I am. Being who God created me to be. So next time you find yourself wishing you were more like someone else or wishing you had something they have, please, learn from my mistakes rather than repeating them, and altar the lesson to fit your personality rather than trying to altar your personality to fit the lesson. Because who you really are will always come pouring out and usually at very inconvenient times.
When the speaker was finished and the event was drawing to a close, my friend approached him to speak with him. As he told me about his conversation with the man something he said struck me. He said he told the man, "Whatever it is that you have, I want it." I have heard that statement before over and over again actually and usually not in the same way that my friend meant it. I know what my friend meant when he said it and I admire his tenacity in going our and trying to become who he was made to be. But usually when I hear the statement, "Whatever it is you have, I want it," it means something else.
In the Pentecostal environments I have been in, this statement usually has something to do with obtaining some gift or power instilled by the Holy Spirit. There have been several "movements of the Spirit" over the past 15 years or so and that is when I hear this statement most. The problem with this statement is that it is the very definition of envy, which the Bible tells us is a sin. This puts me in an awkward place when I hear the statement.
For me, the idea of wanting what someone else has is an issue of discontent with what you do have. Even when it comes to Spiritual gifts, which are good things, it creates an attitude of discontent. When we want the gifts and abilities that God has given someone else, what we are saying is that we are not happy with the gifts and abilities that He has given us. We are saying that we would rather have what God wants for others than what God designed for us. This can be such a destructive way to view things.
In almost every ministry position I've held, paid or unpaid, I have made this error. I have tried to be someone else. Someone I wasn't created to be. I modeled my speaking style after someone else, my speaking content after someone else, my administrative strategy after someone else, my mentoring style after someone else, and in doing so I left no trace of myself in any of it. This only works for so long. The person I really was invariably began to come out, often to the detriment of the persona I was trying to create. One day I decided to stop trying to be a carbon copy of my mentors and only recently have I really begun to get a sense of who I am in ministry. This process is ongoing still today as I try to glean lessons and wisdom from what my mentors have taught me rather than try to become my mentors themselves.
To give you an example of what I mean I need to tell you about one of my mentors. His name is Billy and he is a natural born mentor. He invests himself fully into people and sometimes even gets hurt because of it. He feels deeply for people and because of this he bears their burdens with them. It also makes him a bit of crier but we won't get into all of that. Because Billy is so gifted at connecting with and raising up others, I tried to model myself after him when I was attempting to mentor others. The problem with this is that, even though Billy and I have some similarities, we are very different people. So my trying to become him was actually destructive to my goal of mentoring others. What I am now learning to do is take the things I learned from him and altar them to fit my personality and skill-set rather then altar my personality and skill-set to fit the lessons. Lessons from him like, "Be intentional about bringing them into your world," or "Ask them the tough questions," are easily transferable into any context and I missed the point years ago when he taught me these things.
I am finally in a place where I am not only content with who God is making me into but excited about it. Billy is one of many mentors whose lessons are paying off huge dividends currently because I have learned the hard lesson of being who I am. Being who God created me to be. So next time you find yourself wishing you were more like someone else or wishing you had something they have, please, learn from my mistakes rather than repeating them, and altar the lesson to fit your personality rather than trying to altar your personality to fit the lesson. Because who you really are will always come pouring out and usually at very inconvenient times.
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