I was way off my game and boy did I mess up. It happened as I was being challenged by an atheist. It came on a day when I was already feeling a little off and was not handling my own negative feelings very well. When the challenge came, I thought I could find a clever way to back away from the challenge. Instead of being clever, I misspoke and came up looking quite silly. By the end of the conversation I could only think of the line from the DC Talk song “What If I Stumble?” I truly missed my step and felt like I made fools of us all. My mistake was a reminder that as a Christian I do not have it all together and as I pointed out in “Are You An Imposter?,” I sometimes suffer from imposter syndrome.
I wish I could say that was the only time recently when I felt like a fake but I’ve even suffered imposter syndrome while at church. This time those feelings were triggered by two kinds of feedback. I was running the sound board at church during a time when we didn’t realize there was a problem with our speakers. I tried to compensate and, well, the end result was microphone feedback during two different services. After each occurrence I received critical feedback from church members, who meant well…I think. In the end I found myself doubting and once again wondering if I am a fake. This was yet another reminder that I do not have it all together.
I’d love to be able to say that when I became a Christian I was ready for everything that I would face. Looking back over my Christian life there have been plenty of times when I did something that resulted in sheer embarrassment and I’ve lost count of the number of times that those embarrassments came while trying to defend the faith. That’s not a reflection of who I am nor (when it involves the faith) is it a sign that what I believe isn’t true. It’s a sign that life often involves striking out. But a strikeout does not mean I’m an imposter. It means that if we take on big challenges, we will, from time to time, fail but that really is okay.
