OK, Father...

 The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”

 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”

            The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”

         “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”

             The Lord answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.” (Judges 6:11-16)

 

            He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?”

            He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.”

            Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. (Mark 8:23-25)

 

            A few days ago, I made Imposter Syndrome one of my words for the week because I suspect that a friend is struggling with it. Not too surprisingly, my mind started looking for evidence of I.S. in my life. Naturally, my mind found it pounced on it, and held it up like a victory trophy. “Ta Da! I have Imposter Syndrome in my possession!”

            Isn’t that the way it seems to work. You read about, hear about, or say something about some illness – especially a mental illness – and you find symptoms in yourself. So let’s just say that by 11:30 am, having walked the dog, worked on my clogged kitchen drain, gone to the library book sale (last day, $2 per bag), to the hardware store, and the park for my first load of dirt, and having done some other things around the house, there’s a part of me that says – no, growls, “Failure!”

            But this is the way some of us are. And then someone else comes along and says, “Oh, but you shouldn’t feel that way,” or “Oh, but you mustn’t feel that way.”

            Yeah. That means I’m an even bigger failure because on top of everything else, I’m not thinking the “right” way. And, of course, I’m not thinking in the right way. I’m thinking in the way that Gideon and the man who saw people like trees thought. I’m also dealing with my day the way I deal with projects, meaning that I barely get started, and I’m whining about how it’s a mess, and I made too many mistakes, etc., otherwise known as… the Yuck Factor. Yep, we’re back to that. And the Yuck Factor feeds the Imposter Syndrome, which should turn us toward God, but even if we do turn to God, it’s to whine about what lousy, incompetent, corrupt, stupid, worthless, sinful people we are. Like Gideon.

            And by the end of the day? Chances are pretty good that we’ve accomplished quite a bit, if we don’t spend all day whining. I need to learn to approach such moments of dismay with prayer. “OK, Father… next!” sounds good because it's not about what I am. It's about what He can do through me.