Nov
10
Written by:
Felicia Fox
11/10/2009 4:18 PM
Last Monday night I had supper with Kelli, a college student. We did the small talk thing and then the conversation took a deeper turn. We talked about what it means to be a minister and the standard to which ministers must live. Do ministers have to live to a higher standard than “normal” people? What do other people expect from ministers? These are important questions.
Now fast forward with me to this past weekend. I attended a women’s conference with a group from our church. I had gotten busy and forgotten about the questions my conversation with Kelli raised. There I was listening to Lisa Whelchel (Blair Warner from the Facts of Life TV show) and I had a revelation. She was talking about trying to be perfect because that’s where she used to find her value. She found worth and acceptance in overachieving. I felt like I was looking in a mirror.
I’ve been there and still have days when I want to fall back into the trap of trying to prove myself worthy of being a minister. I guess it has something to do with my past experiences of facing the discrimination of being a woman minister. I was once told that since I was a woman there was no place for me to do ministry. I found that I had to work harder and do more to prove that I could be and was a minister. I fell into the trap of trying to prove myself to gain acceptance and worth. It is a hard trap to get out of.
I’m working on understanding what it means to discover my value not in my relationships with people but with my relationship with God. If my focus is on following God then I become less concerned with the value others want to assign me. That’s really how all of us should live regardless of our vocations. After all, we are all ministers.