Confessions of a pastor | Part 2
How you can have the right answers and yet still fail the assignment.
“I have been relying on my talent more than God’s anointing.”
When I said this in front of the team I serve at Canvas, I couldn’t keep from choking up. For months, without realizing it, I had begun to rely on my talent more than God’s anointing.
I’ll be honest with you
I hated confessing this.
It felt…awful.
Here’s what I’m saying. Just like you, I have talents that come naturally to me. I know I have been gifted to build systems that help accomplish goals efficiently. Truth is, if I’m honest, I can build systems with little-to-no prayer and still be pretty effective. I have been gifted to communicate and teach. And in my arrogance, I could put together a teaching without much in the way of prayer and introspection and it would likely still be received well by those listening. Problem solving comes pretty naturally to me and because of this if I’m not careful I can solve problems without much dependence on God.
I know that sounds super prideful.
That’s because it is super prideful.
Truth is that you’re talented too. You have been given talents that you could do in your sleep. Which leads me a scary reality that I’m realizing for myself that is true for you as well:
You and I could do work for God and yet totally miss the power from God.
And God began to show me that I’ve been doing things for God while not pursuing the power from God. I had been relying on my talent more than God’s anointing.
What is anointing?
Great question.
Anointing is the difference between what you can do and what God can do.
For example, talent may enable me to teach a sermon, but anointing is the power of God that empowers a teaching to change hearts.
Talent may be the vehicle, but anointing is the fuel that gets you to the destination.
As God convicted me of this I realized that if I were to get too comfortable with my talent alone that I could come to the end of my life and discover that I had been successful at everything that didn’t actually matter.
Yikes.
Right answers. Wrong assignment.
I remember one time in Jr. High that my teacher surprised us with a pop quiz. She put the quiz on our desks and told us to return it to her desk when we were finished. I don’t know why but I was feeling especially motivated that morning. I thought, “I am going to nail this quiz. My teacher will be amazed. She won’t ever want to grade another quiz because she’ll be convinced that there will never be a more successful quiz taken by a student for the rest of her career.” As you can tell, I am slightly competitive.
So I finished the test and walked over to my teachers desk and dropped the test like it was a microphone. My teacher began grading all the quizzes quickly…like, really fast…and she began returning our graded quizzes back to our desks. Finally, she approached my desk, smiled, and then placed my quiz face down on my desk. I quickly grabbed my test and flipped it over, ready to see a big “A+” with a circle around it. But what I saw next was not what I anticipated. In bright red ink it said:
“F — Right answers, wrong assignment.”
What in the world happened? Well, it turns out that at the top of the quiz were instructions that I had failed to read. These instructions told us to “Skip all questions and only answer the last question on this exam.” My teacher was testing our ability to read and follow instructions and I failed big time. I had answered all the questions on the quiz correctly, but I missed the point of the assignment.
Well played, teach.
But those words still echo in my heart today.
Right answers. Wrong assignment.
Right answers.
Wrong assignment.
The reason I’m sharing this with you is because I fear that if I continue to rely on my talent, but not His anointing, that I very well may risk committing the same error I made in Jr. High, except this time it would be God who at the end of my life would utter these words:
Right answers. Wrong assignment.
You did good things but you missed the main thing.
You managed your talent but you missed my anointing.
Right answers. Wrong assignment.
These are the last words I want to hear my Lord say when I see him face-to-face. How about you?
I’m thankful that God is so ridiculously gracious with me when I begin to miss the point. In His goodness and love he began to point out this road I was on and called me into a better, truer, fuller version of life. That’s the thing about the grace of God — grace will always meet you where you’re at, but it will also always take you somewhere better.
God is wanting to lead me somewhere better so I’ve made some changes that I believe will better posture myself for God’s anointing in my life. I know sharing these things could come across as self-serving and I don’t mean it that way. This is by no means a roadmap for everyone and I’m not advocating you cope-and-paste this onto your life. This really is just what I think will be good for myself, and for the purpose of accountability I want to share them with you. A few things I’m starting to do are:
- Get my day started by 5:0oam and spend the first two hours in prayer, study and reflection. (This has been a game changer so far.)
- Utilizing this journal throughout the day to be intentional with my time, to write what I learn throughout the day, and to sandwich my day with things that I’m grateful for. My hope is this will intentionally help me to keep a posture of gratitude and learning.
- No longer will I have access to my phone after 7pm and on the weekends (more on this soon). I want to be intentional in minimizing excess “noise” as being still has this way of forcing you to take a look at your heart and life with more honesty and focus.
- Praying with my wife before I leave for the office at 9am.
- Learning to not just read the Scripture, but meditate on it and create space for it to read me.
I’m sure I’ll be adding to this list. But one thing I know is I am going to be intentional to seek and position myself for the anointing of God. I don’t think I can force the anointing of God, I can only prepare for it. So that’s what I am going to do.
Because I’m learning my talent may help me give the right answers.
But it is God’s anointing that ensures I accomplish the right assignment.
Reflection:
- In what areas of your life are you trusting your talent more than God’s anointing?
- What “noise” is in your life right now? Are you productive or just busy?
- What are thing(s) you could start doing to position yourself daily for the anointing of God in your life? What are thing(s) you may need to stop doing?
- When will you begin?
