How to Handle The Pressure to Conform

The thing I love most about grace in my life is that it has made me so much more carefree as I've accepted who God has made me to be, what he's called me to do, and received his grace that I don't have to measure up while I'm doing it, that I can screw up along the way because he's made a way for me to do this imperfectly.

Galatians 1:11: "For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel, for I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the Church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age, among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had set me apart before I was born and who called me by his grace was pleased to reveal his son to me in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me. But I went into Arabia and returned again to Damascus."

What I love about Paul specifically in these verses is he starts the book by saying, "Hey, don't follow another gospel. Don't let somebody put a heavy yoke on you." And then he says, "Look at me. I'm a mess. I was zealous, I was killing Christians. Then I was rescued and I was saved, and that is my story." And at that point, he did not go to all the other people to say, "Should I start preaching the word or should I do this or that?" He went to Arabia.

It's one of the most mysterious parts of Paul's life because he doesn't talk a lot about it, but he talks about the season where Christ revealed himself to Paul and taught him a lot in Arabia, in the desert, and in the season of withdrawal, where it says in the next verse that he's gone for three years.

For three years, Paul goes away with Jesus. The point we need to take is that Paul is not looking side to side to decide who he is and what God has called him to do. He is going straight to God and saying, "God, lead me, teach me, and I will obey you."

Now, there are times for deep community. You all know this. I teach this all the time, that there is a place for God to speak to us and for us to vet that with the people that love us. But there are many times, and this has happened in my life multiple times, where God has told me clearly, "This is what I want you to do. This is what I want you to say. This is where I want you to go." And when I have run that by the people that love me, they have been in conflict with it for human reasons, reasons like, "Ah, that doesn't make sense."

For example, when we started IF:Gathering and I didn't have any big donors, we were going to launch it into the world and I felt like we were supposed to do 'pay what you can', and everyone said: "Jennie, this will be the demise of your organization before it even starts. It will close." People I love, my husband, some of our closest friends that were helping us do it. I remember going to bed and feeling like, "I am supposed to do this. I just know it. And I know it doesn't make sense, earthly sense, but I'm supposed to do it."

There have been few times, but they have happened, where God has just been super clear with me, "This is what you're supposed to do." And people have confronted me and not believed it and I really wrestled with it. And sure enough, of course, God provided and we survived, barely, that first year, but it was the way we were supposed to go that year.

I just am such a believer in accepting exactly what God has given you to build the kingdom with and not looking side to side, "This is how so-and-so did it. This is what this organization did. This is how this friend loves God and serves him in ministry. This is how this person parents, this is how this ... "

The Holy Spirit is supposed to be our counselor, our advisor, our friend. And as he is going through life with us, he points us back, he brings to mind the word that we have studied, that we know, but he also is showing us the way that we are to go, and it will be different than the people around you.

And so the pressure so much that we experience in our life comes from that side-to-side glance, right? "This is how they do it and I'm not measuring up to that. This is how so-and-so's ministry in life looked and I'm not measuring up."

Paul talks about it at the end of Galatians 1. He's like, "I didn't even go talk to the other apostles. They were all there, I knew where they were, but I just listened to God, and here I am telling you what I've heard from God."

We are not to be that arrogant and walk around. There have been plenty of times that I've ever feel like I've heard from God or sensed this is where he's leading me, I don't know if it's for sure God. I don't know. But time usually tells that.

I went back to my friends, I didn't say, "This is what God said and we are going to do it." I went back and said, "Y'all, this literally might be our demise, but I can't escape the sense that we're supposed to go on this road anyway." And I had enough faith and enough clarity from God to walk on a wilderness road into what could have been our destruction.

Scared. I was a nervous wreck the whole year, even the money was coming in as the first event was happening. And we didn't hit the number we needed to hit until the event was over. So it wasn't just sitting back, twiddling my thumbs, hoping for the best, "God said, 'Do this', so it's going to work out." There was a lot of fear still and trembling in that and trusting God as I continued to go.

I do believe for all of us, that intimate walk with God is going to result in us keeping our eyes focused on him, saying, "God, what do you want?"; hearing the voices beside us, hearing and noticing what other people are doing. Because you can learn from that and you can gain wisdom from watching other people follow God.

Ultimately, taking your eyes back to God and saying, "What do you want from me?"

I have seen this most often expressed in our parenting. God gave us four very, very strong, unique humans. And if we were to parent those kids all the same as each other, if we were to parent these kids the same as our family and friends around us (who I'm sure judged us at times in the way we were parenting our kids), we would have completely ruined those kids.

The reason why- I remember reading parenting books when I first started with our son, and I remember ultimately putting them down because I was looking side to side and I was feeling so much pressure, and I felt confused, like there were too many opinions. And I couldn't even just hear from the Lord, "What does this kid need?"

And so what it would look like is as a kid would need discipline, as a kid would need an interruption in their life to be taught, to be corrected, I would just ask the Lord, "God, what do you want me to know? What do you want me to do with this kid?"

One time, Connor, our oldest, he was in first grade. He was a rebellious little punk most of elementary and middle school, and he just loved, loved getting in trouble. He was bored in school, he was super bright, and he just was the one that always got in trouble. I remember the school calling again, he was in the principal's office. This had happened multiple times in the year. And so I'm driving to the school; a little embarrassed, of course.

I drive to the school, I walk in, and I pick him up, and I don't say a word. I don't say a word to him. And he follows me out to the car and I start driving somewhere. I still haven't said a word. And I drove him to this very fancy little restaurant, mind you, he's in first grade, and I sit him across from me. And he knows he's screwed up and he's just waiting for some shoe to drop.

But the thing that God brought to mind that day was to do this kind of big statement moment with him. I went to this very fancy restaurant and I ordered a piece of coconut cake the size of his head because I knew they had the best and biggest cake. And so they brought out the cake, and he's just looking at me thinking I had lost my mind, right? And I looked in his eyes and I said, "Buddy, today is the day we are celebrating the end of your rebellion." And he paused. It was the shock that got his attention of, "This did not go like I thought it would." And that was a turning point for that year for him. The principal did not call again the rest of the year.

God was leading me how to parent that kid. If I had done that every time and read that in a parenting book- "When your kid screws up at school, surprise them with cake," of course I would think that was absolutely crazy. But in that moment, that kid was very familiar with trouble. What he wasn't familiar with was celebrating the end of that trouble. And what he needed to remember was, "We could have a lot more fun if this would be over." And God led me to that.

I know some of you are listening and going, "This is not how I view God. I don't think he speaks, I think he spoke in his word." And I would agree that his word is the place we hear from him, and anything outside of the words of God in Scripture, if it conflicts with the word of God in any way, that is not from God. But there are times he leads us into passive understanding and into ways of following him that are unique for the moment and suited for the person.

We can't hear that if we are constantly measuring our lives and deciding how to follow God based only on looking side to side. We have to ask God, "Who have you made me to be? What have you put in me to give away to the world? What do you want me to do in these situations?"

That’s the grace that I hope we have for each other, that we're each going to follow God in very, very unique ways. And sometimes it will make perfect sense by the world's standards, and many times it won't. That’s the fun of following God, supernatural things happen when we follow God, and two plus two doesn't always equal four. Sometimes two plus two equals a thousand, and you never saw it coming.

That is the adventure of grace; his way of walking with each of us in a unique way. Rather than sizing us up against each other, he sees each of us in the way we were made, the way we were designed and the gifts he's given us.

The thing I love most about grace in my life as I've grown in my understanding of it and I've actually let it be a part of the way I view the world and other people is that it has made me so much more carefree as I've accepted who God has made me to be, what he's called me to do and received his grace, that I don't have to measure up while I'm doing it, that I can screw up along the way because he's made a way for me to do this imperfectly knowing that I would. It's so freeing.

That's what I love about it, it’s you don't live so afraid, because the opposite of grace to me is fear.

Because when we have grace and we experience the fullness of that, then we are free to love other people, to be for other people, to follow God wherever he calls us, to love our kids how they need to be loved, to not need everything from everybody else and to suck them dry.

We just get free. And our fear dwindles because we know God is for us, that he loves us, that he likes us, that he delights in us. And it's a happier, more joyful way to live.

It's not easier, there's still hardship, but even that hardship, it just feels different than if we're trying to muscle our way through this life.