I wrote the following for our Eastern Regional Association’s June newsletter:
“Imposter Syndrome” is the feeling that if people really know you they’d realize you are a fraud, not really qualified, and it often leads to anxiety and striving to keep the mask in place. It’s a fairly common experience, and one that I’ve dealt with at times because of my unusual path into an accounting career. I have to remind myself, as the saying goes, that “God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called.” We may tend to think that if we just take a spiritual gift test we’ll know exactly what God wants us to do for the rest of our lives. But oftentimes our confidence in our own abilities makes us prideful and robs God of the glory He should be receiving. He delights in using those who know they are unqualified. “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Cor. 1:27-28). It strikes me that God chose Saul of Tarsus, the man educated under Gamaliel and a “Hebrew of Hebrews,” to send him not to his fellow Jews, but as an apostle to the Gentiles. And God sent Peter, the uneducated fisherman, as an apostle to the Jews. God likes to take people out of their comfort zones so that they will rely on Him. As Paul wrote, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Cor. 12:9b).
Another manifestation of Imposter Syndrome is the feeling that you don’t quite fit in and would be rejected if people knew you. As I wrote this, Rev. Glennon Balser was nearing the end of his days. If you knew Glennon, you know that he was a great hugger. That made me start thinking about all the hugs that will be shared when we all meet again in the Resurrection. But then it hit me that it’s far easier for me to imagine that than to imagine the embrace of my Savior when He comes. I’ve tended to picture the Judgment Day as an impersonal sorting— “Sheep… sheep… goat… All the sheep to My right, all the goats to My left…” Yet if you look at the life of Jesus, you get a different picture. He was known as a friend of tax collectors and sinners (Matt. 11:19). He reached out to touch and heal the unclean (Matt. 8:3). He stopped to talk to a woman in the middle of a crowd and called her “daughter” (Matt. 9:22). And He told a parable of the prodigal son and said “while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him” (Luke 15:20). We too can expect to be embraced when we come to our eternal home as children of God.
The fact is, we’re all imposters. None of us deserves the blessings of this life or the privilege of serving God, and none of us deserve eternal life in His kingdom. But that doesn’t matter because our Creator is the One who chose us, redeemed us, and adopted us into His family—not for anything that we have done but simply because He delights to show us His love. What a day that will be when we can run into the arms of our Father!
© 2023 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.
