I was recently talking with a friend who was struggling with feeling like he was not a good enough follower of Jesus.  He had been listening to someone who was trying to encourage other Christians to get more involved in church work and outreach.  That talk apparently took a scarcity approach to love, pointing out all that is lacking in us with the hope that that might guilt or pressure us into doing more to fill the void.  What was meant to be motivating had the opposite effect; it backfired.  My friend went introspective with the words he heard, internalized them, and they became the weight of guilt, shame, and failure.

The only words I had to offer here were ones that I believe are true, but that I have struggled to accept for most of my life.  Being that this is an age of gadgets that theoretically enhance the ability to communicate, I texted my friend these words:

The good news is you are not called to save the world; that job is already taken.  Your job is to be a witness in words, actions, and the very way you live your life to the good news of what God has done through Jesus Christ.  And this side of the Second Coming, you will never do any of that perfectly.  Recognizing that does not mean you should not take seriously any shortcomings you may discover about yourself along the way.  But it also does not mean that you should give those shortcomings any  more weight or merit than they deserve.  God has already won, so you are free to learn how to be more faithful, make mistakes, and learn how to work through shortcomings without getting trapped in the lie that it all depends upon you.

Of course, everything I said in that text was not original with me.  I have received this re-orienting narrative reality from others when I have struggle to remember who and how I am in the world and what time it is.  That makes me hopeful.  For every guilt-ridden message I have received that got labeled “gospel” (AKA good news), God has sent some person or book my way to remind me that the Good News should really be good news. Though I am way imperfect, my hope is to return the favor to someone else.  I hope this text message was a part of that.