Embracing Inadequacy frees us from the masks we wear (Part 2)

I got this, I can fix this. I can at least give the appearance that I do”….If you're not living an exposed life, you're definitely not having fellowship. Self-protective and self-exhalative narratives demand that we look good even if we can't be good. The redemptive narrative insists that I'm a mess and desperately needy. God loves Him a good mess. — Jim Pocta, M.A., LPC

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin — 1 John 1:7

In 2005 the following words rattled in my heart…“well…public speaking just isn’t your gift Cameron”. This was a trusted pastor’s response after a painfully embarrassing moment before my church’s congregation. I had been asked to give a brief explanation of my job as a youth worker in Northern Ireland and the Republic. I had given slides to illustrate places and people who I had worked with for the past 12 months. The AV team were not able to produce the slides and I stumbled through my thoughts and nervous words. The sting of shame and humiliation pierced deep. I decided to avoid situations like these at all costs and bury the memory away. Yet a few years later I found myself giving a eulogy at my beloved grandfather’s funeral. Unexpectedly my emotions overwhelmed me and before a large crowd I wept through my words with embarrassment. I felt shame and inadequate to stand before a crowd.

A lifetime of denying inadequacy will leave you living lonely at best or self-disillusioned at worst. The unchecked desire to reject inadequacy will carry us into a toxic loneliness. It did for me because it wasn’t something about myself I cared to share. But inadequacy is a deep dive. It’s more than a commitment to keep others from seeing our insecurities, it’s also our failures, our pain, or anything else that exposes us as insufficient. Admitting those things means I’m admitting I’m weak, needy, and don’t measure up. It’s an insane irony really. While maintaining the appearance of something we’re not (in an attempt to garner approval through strength or confidence), we actually prevent others from knowing who we really are. This is called wearing masks. For many of us we don’t just wear one mask, but probably dozens, many of which we are simply unaware of. The danger of mask wearing, as John Lynch describes in The Cure, “no one told me that when I wear a mask, only my mask receives love”. But when we embrace what is actually authentic about us, we can begin to find freedom from the lies we live. When God finally necessitated that I wrestle with this insecurity with faith, therein was where God began His work in me. As Larry Crabb once said, “God meets us where we are, not where we pretend to be”. Mask wearing is pretending and that pretending is enslaving. Embracing inadequacy is taking off the mask. But revealing our true selves before God and a grace dispensing community is only the beginning. One of the greatest blessings in the embrace of our inadequacy is what it uncovers about our hearts…they ache for grace…