My Greatest Fears

I had planned to post about some other topic for this week. But life happened, and hence the plan has changed.

On a regular basis, I serve in my church as one of the online welcome hosts on the livestream platform for our weekly Saturday celebrations. Recently it was decided that house rules for the public chat is needed to prevent unedifying comments from distracting the online congregation.

I took a shot at drafting the house rules wording and posted in on the WhatsApp group chat for online welcome hosts. I thought I did well drafting it. But almost immediately, a fellow welcome host commented that my draft is TLDR (too long didn’t read). It was meant to be a light-hearted comment, and so I replied with a 🙈.

But in reality, I feel like 💩. Shame is activated, morphing into a mild depression later this night.

Each time I feel depressed or shame, I fear something.

Is this feeling something that can be written away here? Maybe, maybe not. But if I do not write, my head will be stuck at the depressed stage. I will feel better tomorrow morning, but the shame monster will still be here, hibernating for the time being until another trigger jolts it awake.

One of my beliefs is that my successes or good works are not to be shared with everyone. If my successes and strengths are brought to light, I should downplay it. In my pursuit of humility, I may have ended up lowering my standards. But are my standards high in the first place? I thought I did well, until I see another doing better.

When is the point when expressions about giving glory to God becomes generic? My intelligence comes from above – this I truly believe. But though I believe this, expressing it in speech seems fake or holier-than-thou.

I also find that I have regressed into seeking praise from men. Not all types of people – only those who I like and whom I want to like me back.

There are people who can laugh at their own mistakes and yet repent from them. I am not one of them. I take mentions of my mistakes as an assault on my self-perception. I see my mistakes as leaving indelible marks on my self. I see my repeated mistakes as unforgivable sins.

The thing is, I can forgive the mistakes of others. The most difficult person to forgive is myself.

If I truly repent, I will not be like this anymore. Who I am now will not be who I will be in future. Or rather, what I am like now will not be what I will be like in future.

Wouldn’t He finish His work of sanctification in me? Isn’t it said that Jesus will save me from this body of death?

The problem is, I make the same mistakes from which I have repented. How do I perceive those who repeats mistakes (advertently or inadvertently) despite having repented from them? Insincere and apathetic, right?

We will all continue to struggle until the day of Christ. The Alpha course teaches this. We will all continue to struggle until the day of Christ.

My greatest fear – isn’t about making mistakes. It is repeating the same mistakes I have resolved to avoid.

My greatest fear – isn’t about not getting praise from people I like. It is about them losing their trust in me.

“You are good for nothing!” “You are useless.” These are my greatest fears. I have yet to overcome these fears; otherwise, this post wouldn’t be written.