My Pet Origami Swan: A Reminder in How God Works Through His People

[NOTE:  Upon reading this, you might think I am soliciting pity for me and my fellow ministers.  Just know, that is not the response I'm looking for.] 

Believe it or not, not everyone likes everything ministers present on any given Sunday.  And believe it or not, ministers generally know when a sermon, a worship service, or a lesson totally bombs.  In my young ministerial life, this has been one of the things that has been extremely hard for me.  I am a people-pleaser.  I never liked getting in trouble by my parents or at school, which rarely happened.  I always tried my best at whatever I did, and I genuinely want people to like me.  So whenever I bomb a song in a worship service, or hear someone didn't like something we did or a song we sang it sometimes cuts deeper than it should.  Most people who are offering criticism are not doing it maliciously, and for that I am extremely grateful.  They just want to be helpful.  Everyone is entitled to their opinions, and I am usually [after the fact] very gracious for their thoughts and concerns.

Most of us who serve as ministers are generally aware when something we have planned doesn't usually go as well as we might have thought it would.  To make matters even more difficult, we usually have really high standards for the things that we present; and when things don't go as planned, or it didn't get the response we were looking for, we can take it as a personal failure on our parts.  "What if I would have said this better?" or "If I would have just sang [or not sang] this song, it would have been better."  We are tough on ourselves because we feel the great responsibility we have to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our churches and in our communities.  And in that, we demand a lot out of ourselves.  We build things up in our mind to the point that if they fall flat, we feel defeated.  [Note:  I am generalizing, but know that not every minister is this way.]

A few weeks ago, I had a service that fell flat.  I was really excited leading up to the Sunday because I loved the songs we had selected for that Sunday, and I knew the message was going to go great and the flow was going to be just as we planned.  However, from the first note I could tell this was not going to be my best work.  I had gone against my better judgement on introducing a song that was unfamiliar, my energy and passion levels were slowly waning, and it just fell flat.

Leaving the church that morning, I knew that it didn't go well and that's when my negative thoughts starting rolling in.  There were a couple of people who, trying to be helpful, pointed out to me that the service wasn't up to par....so that started messing with me.  So I threw a little pity party for myself that night.  It's really quite ridiculous when you think about it.

I felt like I had let myself down, let the congregation down, let the preacher down....yeah....pathetic right?  It was just a deflating night.

Rewind to Lenten season this year.  One of my favorite authors/bloggers, Rachel Held Evans, wrote about a practice she picked up for the season of Lent.  As you can imagine, as a blogger [especially writing on topics like she often does] she receives a lot of "unhappy" fan mail.  So, as a spiritual discipline for Lent she began to make little origami animals out of her hate mail.  You can read the blog about it here.  As someone who is a tactile pray-er, I wanted to pick this practice up but put my own slant on it.

So, back to the Monday after my bombed service.

I came to work that morning, sat at my desk with my printed worship order from the day before pondering what could have gone wrong.  Then I remembered Rachel's blog about praying with origami.  So I pulled up a "origami for beginners" website and turned that bombed worship order into a little paper swan, which now sits on my bookshelf.

 

You wouldn't believe how relieving doing this was for me even if you were watching me do it.  With every fold I prayed that God would take my feeble attempts at leading his people in worship and use them far beyond anything I could ever imagine.  As that little swan sat on my desk I could almost feel the Spirit of God fill me and whisper:

"I still used it."

That is the message from God I need to hear daily, and I do because this little swan now has a permanent place on my bookshelf.  You see, often times I think it's all about how well I'm doing.  I tend to think that if I had a bad day, God must have taken off and gone to some other church that morning, but that is not true.  No matter if a service falls flat, no matter if that point didn't come across the way you planned it in your sermon, no matter if you get emails the following Monday about the service not being the best it could have been, be reminded that God still used you (and me) in wonderful ways to share His message of love and grace.

It's as if in the those moments I remember how feeble I am as a person, and I think like the psalmist asking "Who is man that you are mindful of him?"  And God speaks softly again...."I still used it."

Praise God for his never-ending love and his power to reach beyond our brokenness and feebleness to still use us as vessels for his message.  May you be blessed this week and know that God is using you.