Before these couple of feeble words, I’ve not written a single thing since last year.
My voice has been lost. If I’m honest, it wasn’t really lost as much as it was hidden.
I hid my voice in the same ancient shame-ridden Edenic way we have all hidden from the beginning.
It was easy to say “I’ve been busy.” It’s easy to hide behind the excuse of a major challenge of change, the emotional toil of transition, or the time crunch of a new business.
Why was I hiding? I believed that my scorecard drives my worth.
I was told years ago to quit speaking if my “metrics didn’t line up with reality.” I don’t think they meant this to harm me, but I remember ingesting their words and was silent for 3 days. My wife looked at me by the second day like I had lost my mind.
In a sense, I did.
A new internal rule had been born, fed, and was now growing inside of my soul.
When I look at my “scorecard,” especially during a difficult transition in business and life, the scorecard looks (and looked) awful. I told some friends I felt like I had gone from painting like Michelangelo to creating the same level of art my 6 year old produces. It’s cute, but objectively bad. And the results of my efforts went from producing “wins” to “losses.”
It’s in these moments that I begin believing that my words have no worth and that I have no voice or authority when things are not near perfect in my life.
The false self rises up inside of me and asks, “Who wants to hear from me anymore?”
In this moment it all comes bursting forth, the list of false self realities start to lock in one by one.
It’s then my false self starts hiding when I should be gathering with others to be more known, leading with self-doubt, and gripping and attempting to muscle the results. I feel behind, frantic, and cloudy in my thinking.
Here is the truth and the reality that I hope you find encouraging, particularly if you’re in a similar season.
Transitioning and change are exceptionally difficult. Change is the external reality that things are different. Transition, on the other hand, is the deep, wrenching, hard emotion. It’s the inner part of change, the one that wreaks havoc on your body, mind, and soul. The part that shakes you up and reveals and releases the false self patterns.
In the midst of a particularly dark day recently, my friend Ray Hayles pointed me to the truth embedded in the great hymn “Come Ye Sinners.”
Let not conscience make you linger,
nor of fitness fondly dream;
all the fitness He requireth
is to feel your need of Him.
Listening to truth and encouragement spoken by true friends awakens truth like nothing else, particularly if you feel like you’re in the darkest moments.
It feels like the beacons of Gondor have been lit, aid is on the way, and the armies of Truth are coming to overwhelm and defeat the false self hordes within you.
In the midst of these trials and tribulations, thinking God is at work feels offensive. It hits at my pride and belief that I muscle the work on my own. It fights my temptation to draw away from people. It rejects my tendency to try and suffer alone. It reveals that I believe that performing for others is the way to live, and since my performance is subpar, that’s who I am as well.
This couldn’t be further from the truth.
The Truth armies have banners of truth and mercy that serve and restore my soul.
They say “Son of the King.” I don’t muscle the work, I joyfully co-labor with God in the work He is doing in and around and through me.
They say “Relationships Over Results.” I don’t draw away from people, I reach out and run to relationships.
They say “You are Loved.” I don’t suffer alone in fear and shame, I listen to others who bring me joy and encouragement when I most need it.
They say I am worthy, I am known, I am fueled by Grace, I am right on time.
These truths don’t change my reality and the hard things I’m working through. But they change my perspective and my ability to see. It’s friends like Trevor Hightower that speak truths that scrape the scales off my eyes, like Sam did for Frodo:
“It’s like the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad has happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines, it’ll shine out the clearer. I know now folks in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going because they were holding on to something. That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.”
And so I sit still in the passing shadow, looking ahead to when the sun shines, and shines out all the clearer.
I see it breaking through as the armies of Truth gather up inside of me. On the outside I can see the things that truly matter in this time. It’s certainly not my scorecard which just makes me feel my lack.
It’s my knowing and believing my need of Him that brings me to sit here in unfettered gratitude.
It makes me sing the words of Brandon Coleman of the Red Clay Strays at the top of my lungs:
When I sit at my table
And eat the food that You put there
With my loved ones all around me
Not one empty chair
That’s when my heart gets so thankful
For the mercy You’ve shown me
And though I’m undeserving
You still give me all I need
Lord, I’m grateful, oh, I’m grateful
For what the good Lord’s done, I’m grateful, oh, I’m grateful
I am not my scorecard.
I am a Son of the King. And I’m grateful. Oh, I’m grateful.
Thank you for this, Tim!
This feels like Spider-man putting his suit back on.
I'll toss you another quote from the movie Kingdom of Heaven (2000)
"Remember that howsoever you are played or by whom, your soul is in your keeping alone, even though those who presume to play you be kings or men of power. When you stand before God, you cannot say, "But I was told by others to do thus," or that virtue was not convenient at the time. This will not suffice.