As a student pastor in a wealthy suburban Kansas City culture, I am never sure how to dress. In high school, I wore sweat pants, gym shorts and t-shirts. The culture of rural Iowa and where I am now are very different. I am 31 and work with teenagers and I want to look relevant but not 18 and I do not know how to do it. Then I look at the people I aspire to be like and I am even more confused in how to dress. THE STRUGGLE IS REAL. Do I really want to dress like someone else?
I have tried to preach like other people and it goes really bad for me. Here is what I have learned… Be the Varsity me verses the JV them! In teenage world and in the adult world it all seems the same, people pretend to be someone they are not. Often they do not really even like the person they are trying to become. In the Bible, there was only one Moses, one Abraham, one David, one Elijah, and one Peter. The circumstances and calling which walk hand and hand were so different. God only needed one Moses because the leader Joshua had a very different assignment.
I believe the reason we are tempted to be someone we are not is because of envy. We look at our gifts and compare them to someones. That comparison causes insecurity or worse. I look at some preachers that I aspire to be like and when I compare I never feel good about me. However, they have been preaching 10 years plus more than me. I hope I am a better preacher in 10 years than I am today.
Psalm 139:13 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
16 You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.
17 How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.
They cannot be numbered!
18 I can’t even count them;
they outnumber the grains of sand!
This what God thinks about you and the specific gifts He designed you with. A specific knitting together, a specific set of gifts, and a specific plan was laid out for you. God only does varsity level gifts!
So who do you compare or try to be? Are trying to be a varsity you or a jv them? Go to Jesus today and let Him share His thoughts toward you! Ask Him how He made you to be and go do that!
Recklessly, obsessively following Jesus
Brandon Sereg
