"Performance does not define one who works hard, but one who works hard for the wrong reasons...their security is not first in God and themselves but in what people think of them."
- John & Paula Sandford, "Transforming the Inner Man"
STOP, CO-OPERATE & LISTEN...
First off, please know that this is my personal story, it was also a tougher journey than how it sounds, God was bringing healing to so many other things while this was happening like dealing with issues with my earthly father...and I'm still getting freed from performance and striving...it's like the Berlin wall has fallen, but there's leftover debris that needs to get cleaned up! I pray God's love will minister to you as you read this and that you'll encounter the truth of who He is like never before.
Here we go...
So, after an amazing few years at UrbanPromise Toronto (around 2007), God asked me to leave ministry to take a season of rest.
I thought a time of rest would be restful and easy but ooh haha, it was quite the opposite. Though it was restful for my body, my heart and soul were in anguish as things that were deep in my heart began to surface from all the alone time and silence!! Maybe I should've called it a "season of pruning."
God began to replay, in slow motion, the past few years in ministry and showed me a spiritual x-ray of my heart - the motives of my heart - reasons behind my actions and behaviour. 1 Sam 16:7 explains how God looks at our hearts, also see Prov 21:2, Lk 6:45, Matt 12:34. He showed me how I was finding my security and identity in serving rather than Himself.
Through a series of books - see resource list below, audio teachings, the Bible and just in private times with God, I began to learn about the issue of performance. This is my personal, non-Webster, definition: performance is striving to please those around us (co-workers, family, friends, God and ourselves). Striving means to put all your energy into achieving a goal.
One of the things I learned is that performance is a part of our lives since we're wee little ones! We learn to live to please our parents and teachers. Then we grow into teenagers who live to please and earn the respect of our peers. Then by the time we're adults, we're trying to seek the approval of those we work with and on top of that, we have to live up to our own expectations and standards!! We grow up subconsciously learning to prove we're worth being loved and respected. That's a lot of pressure!
I saw how I grew up to become the Martha of the Mary and Martha parable in the Bible (Lk 10:38-42). Or like the older brother in the story of the Prodigal Son (Lk 15) where I returned home to my Father's house (discovered God's love for me) but went straight to working in the field, performing for God's love. I discovered that the Ms.Independence-driven-perfectionist that I had been so proud of and relished in, was actually a hurting, lonely, starving for love and acceptance daughter of God.
the performance was a symptom of a deeper issue: identity.
Pause. There's absolutely nothing wrong with working hard with all diligence and discipline to live out our fullest, God-given identity and destiny. It's in being who He created us to be that gives Him glory!! But it's worth taking a look deeper at what is motivating us to strive to be "our best" because it gets to the core of our identity. Speaking of, I asked myself that same question, is all this work of digging deep in the heart even worth it!?! Well, read on...
"I'M HOOKED ON A FEELING, I'M HIGH ON BELIEVING, THAT YOUR IN LOVE WITH ME..."
So after God revealed the performance stuff, He said to me, "is it enough for you to know that I love you because your my daughter?" It hit the core of my being because I realized it wasn't enough!! It WAS too good to be true that the everlasting, gracious, unconditional love God has for me is FREE!!?!?! Unearned, unmerited...it was totally backwards to what I'd grown up with!! We live in a very give and take culture, where nothing is for free (as I mentioned above). And so it was in my relationship with God, I had to earn my way into His arms. It's amazing how much we find our worth, security and identity in what we do!! It was when I stopped doing, doing, doing, that God was able to teach me what the season of rest was really about...a season that thankfully, has no end.
we have to ask ourselves, if our titles and positions were stripped from us, if no one ever called us needing our help, if we were on a deserted island with no one but Jesus...would He be enough for us?
The opposite of performance is rest. God isn't talking about idle, laziness kinda rest. God's talking about the kind of rest where we're so secure in our identity in Him, so knowing and trusting who He is that there's a deep inner peace and rest in our souls (hearts and minds). Freed from the expectations of others, freed from worrying about what people think, freed from comparing ourselves to others, freed from feeling like we never measure up, freed from our own expectations, the list goes on.
I had found my identity in the world and God wanted to restore my identity in Him. The season of rest became a journey of discovering God's crazy love for me. He wanted to take me from knowing His love theoretically, in my mind, to knowing it deep in my heart. That as I discovered God's true identity as a loving Father, I would discover my true identity as His beloved child. King David and Jesus are Biblical examples of this, they were so secure in their Father's love for them that it empowered them - even in their sufferings - to live out God's plan for their lives.
"KING DAVID'S LIFE IS A PICTURE OF HOW GOD BRINGS US
INTO THE FULLNESS OF OUR CALLINGS BY ESTABLISHING OUR IDENTITY IN THE LORD."
- Mike Bickle, "After God's Own Heart"
I love that promise in Hebrews 11:6 where it says that God rewards those who diligently seek Him. So I began to diligently, like daily, ask God to show me His love in a tangible way. Time passed. Then one morning, I just decided to stop everything I was doing and in desperation, laid on my bed and listened to an audio teaching on the Father's love (a free podcast or something). As I listened to this guy's testimony of when He first encountered God's love that in that instant, it's like BAM!!! It's like Heaven opened above me and His love came crashing down.
His love poured in, penetrating my heart, washing away a lifetime of rejection, hurt and anger and in the end, it was like I had tasted freedom for the first time. I remember spending hours that morning, sobbing like a baby. All this time, my soul had been thirsting for God - true love (Isaiah 55 or like David talks about in Ps 63) - and I had run around all my life finding fulfillment, security and identity in everything else but God.
I experienced a peace that was "beyond understanding" like Philippians 4:7 describes. All the condemning thoughts and guilt and shame washed away. Healing on so many levels. My soul (heart and mind) was finally
at rest...in the safety of His love. How else can I describe it other than I felt safe and free. Safe enough to be me without worrying about what others thought or feeling like I had to prove myself to the world, I didn't even care! It didn't matter anymore!!I didn't need a title or a position or even a certain amount of Facebook friends to feel worthy, appreciated or loved. I had God and He was finally enough for me.
My view of God was instantly restored. The God I'd grown up with was an angry, disappointed, distant cop in the sky who was watching my every move, just waiting to punish me for any mistake I made. I now saw Him as a loving Father and finally understood that description of His love in Zephaniah 3:17 where it says God delights in us,
quiets us with His love...I knew it was always true, but in that instant, it's like the truth became alive in me...guess that's why the Bible also says that the truth sets us free! God doesn't just want us to read His love letter (the Bible), but like any relationship, He wants us to know His love in a real, tangible way!!! He's jealous for us to know His love for us.
My view of myself was instantly restored. As I saw who God really was, I myself was changed - 2 Cor 3:18 describes the way we're transformed into the likeness of God by beholding God! I was suddenly beautiful, shining with worth!! I didn't need the affirmation of others to tell me how beautiful I was, my Father's love and affirmation of me was enough. See, I was familiar with my personality, skills and giftings. I knew my identity as a missionary or daughter to my mother, a sister, a cousin, but to know that before all of these things that I am a perfectly loved child of God, it literally blew my mind and transformed me.
((The whole idea of our identity as sons and daughters of God is as powerful a revelation as knowing Jesus as our Saviour. Romans 8:12-16 talks about a Spirit of sonship, where we know we've been adopted...no longer orphans, but sons and daughters. And knowing God as "Abba" Father! See the resource list below for some great books on this.))
The truth that God loved me wasn't just words on a page anymore, it became real to me. I didn't even know it was possible to feel that way until I felt that way - and that's when I knew it was worth the journey. Now, I am able to love others and minister to others from a place of love instead of duty or obligation. Love doesn't need to be mustered up but it overflows from God's love for me. "We love because He first loved us." 1 John 4:19. Working away administratively preparing everything for the recent school was done out of rest and peace instead of anxiousness and striving in my own strength. We were full of faith that our Father would give us all we needed to get everything done. And our role as school leaders wasn't defined by how much work we could get done or by how many students we could enroll, but we were defined by our identity as children of God, loved by a Father who believes in us and is excited to partner with us to see His kingdom come through the school. It sure took a lot of pressure off of us needing to be perfect, needing to prove that we could lead a school.
FINAL WORDS, FINALLY!!!
There's just no loopholes with the love of God. He loves us not because of anything we do or don't do. And being a mother now, I totally get it. We love Seth like crazy, he doesn't even do anything to deserve it but is just our adorable son who eats, poops and plays all day! We want him to always know that our love for him remains the same whether he poops or not in life!!
Being forced to take that time to let Him love me is now something I gladly devote myself to as often as I can.
And it's worth spending the rest of my life discovering and resting in God's endless love for me, where my life and identity is anchored in Him.
Once again, if you've made it this far, thank you. Beyond thank you, I'd love to know how God has spoken to you through this, or if you have any questions or concerns about any of this. Please don't be shy to share, I'd love to hear!! Oh my goodness I sound like a cheesy Dr.Seuss book...anyways, contact me at jonandtami@gmail.com.
RESOURCES:
The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming
Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World
Jack Frost
The Father's Embrace
Transforming the Inner Man...first part of The Transformation Series
From Orphans to Heirs: Celebrating Our Spiritual Adoption
For love sake,
-
tami
PS - AAHHH!!! It's the never-ending blog!!! Below is part of my friend's blog, which I received in interesting timing and it just hit my heart cause it's similar to the above stuff so if your hungry for more, take a gander at it:
"In this walk of faith there are exhilarating moments where God trusts you with the dreams of His heart.
But I guarantee you that there will also be times where God gives you nothing, nothing but Himself. No cutting edge projects to run, no vivid visions to cast, nor people to speak in front of …. just Himself. And there the true colors of our devotion, motives, & intimacy begin to arise to the surface of our hearts. Its in God’s presence alone, a place with no distractions even from ministry itself, is our security truly tested.
God may have trusted me with theSex+Money campaign, but in His own loving way He has gracefully woven periods of divine downtime in my tapestry of faith. Downtime for a person who loves to be on the frontlines, is like being forced to be the laundry boy during a war. Yet here in these moments of where I’ve felt useless or ineffective, God has been using as a threshing floor to blow away the chaff of my life so that I may become useful. It’s here that God has been cultivating and redefining the intimacy that will produce heavenly advocacy; an intimacy that can not be defined by how much we can do, but who God already is.
So I'm beginning to learn, that we can leave our Christian trinkets at the door. Throw away our spiritual resume. Who cares how many books we’ve read to intellectually solidify our faith. Is not faith received from God and not earned (Ephesians 2)? Our amazing gift sets? That can go to sleep as well. What about our dreams to do great things for God? Those are nice, but rest assured God will be just fine without them. Why? Because in the presence of God, none of those peripherals define our intimacy; only who God is and what He’s already done. And from this place of intimacy with Him, God can do more in our waiting, than we can do in our doing.
It is
this one stretching truth that we must embrace before ever being launched from His presence:
God is completely satisfied in us, even if we were to never do anything for Him but sit at his feet in worship till we die. Anything more, we devalue the power of Cross as if we have something to offer above it (Hebrews 10:10). Yet out of the overflow of God’s heart, He gives us the privilege to co-labor to experience even more of His glory on this Earth
." - jasen chung,
www.jasenchung.com
