Fascimile Emotions

Sometimes I almost feel like I'm faking it. Or perhaps I have been faking it for a long time, but am just now beginning the process of really living the way I've portrayed myself to be living all this time.

I have a very specific set of abilities and gifts. I know what I'm good at, and I love doing what I'm good at. My position as a youth pastor takes me so far outside of those giftings. In some ways that's good, because it forces me to rely on God. It forces me to kneel my heart before Him so much more than I would if left to my own devices. It forces me to seek out His help in this ministry, because I don't have the natural skills to be able to do what I need to do without supernatural help.

But in other ways it makes me feel incredibly inadequate. So much so, that I sometimes feel as though I'm just a pretender. I've learned that trying to copy others doesn't work, I have to be who God created me to be, I have to work and serve and teach and disciple in ways that come from Him through me. Trying to copy+paste other styles just doesn't work. But I still feel sometimes as though I'm just this pretender who's filling in until the real youth pastor shows up.

As I talk with older youth pastors, or people who've been involved in youth ministry for a long time, I realize just how little I really know. As I just sit there and listen to them, they have such an expanse of knowledge just right off the top of their head. Half the time I don't know any answers. I have to go and research and dig and scramble for answers. If I'm caught in a situation where an immediate answer is needed, I have to pray and hope that the Holy Spirit will bring to remembrance some truth I've been taught, or have read from the Bible. I don't want to teach wrong things. I don't want to accidentally lead people into harmful lifestyles, or into wrong thinking. But I'm afraid that I will just because of my lack of knowledge.

I know I'm where I'm supposed to be, and I see fruit, and it makes me happy. But I guess I won't know why I feel this way, and what I'm to learn from it until later.