Embracing My Inadequacy

When I think about it, I hope I never totally lose a sense of my own inadequacy. 

These first six months on the foreign mission field have been unique. They have not been spent immersed in West African culture. They have not been exclusively devoted to language learning. They have been spent in a brief period of lockdown in the American home of my in-laws. They have been spent with many days of separation from my dear husband, who has to travel at least once a week to another city to supervise and assist in the building of our new home. These days have been spent with two children under 3 who are always at my side, forcing me to put my energy into learning them and not French. They have been spent learning all the blessings and trickiness that comes from being a daughter-in-law. They have reminded me that, although I have reached the mission field, I have not yet arrived.

It has been humbling— sometimes even distressing— to find out the depths of my own inadequacy. It has been a healthy reminder.

I have been studying Paul’s letter to the Philippians, and have taken note of his personal sense of inadequacy as well. He had a goal: to know Christ deeply, from the power of His resurrection, to the fellowship of His suffering, to the likeness of His death, to the hope of his own similar resurrection. (Philippians 3:10,11)

But he follows up this goal with a statement:

Not as though I had already attained, either were perfect [mature]: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 3:12-14

Paul the apostle knew he hadn’t arrived either. Even though he had every reason to think he had (see Philippians 3), he knew it was all worthless and had a higher goal: to know Jesus. and he did this by letting go of all his qualifications and pressing onward and upward in the embrace of his inadequacy.  In another epistle, Paul speaks of glorying in his infirmities because of the grace of God that is exclusively manifested in weakness. 

So, when the settings and circumstances I am in change soon, I want to remember that I have still not arrived. There is still a goal ahead of me, I am still inadequate, and there is still grace for that. 

When you are faced with the rough truth of your own weakness and need, I hope you embrace. I hope I remember to keep embracing it. Because without our weakness, we cannot have the grace and strength of Christ, we cannot know the prize of the power or the fellowship of a life spent with Him.