Dear God, I am supposed to give a talk to a church group on Tuesday night, but it isn’t about the work we do at our nonprofit. Several years ago, a man asked me to come and teach his “Community of Hope” class about the topic of Pastoral Identity. Frankly, the first time I read the materials from which they wanted me to teach, I was overwhelmed by their vocabulary and depth. To put it bluntly, I didn’t understand them. So I took each paragraph and tried to make an outline of it. Then I turned that outline into a PowerPoint presentation. It ended up working pretty well, but now I am supposed to give it again, and I feel like I’m at square one.

I opened the PowerPoint this morning and I found these words: Pastoral Identity is the deep understanding that Jesus lives, breathes, and ministers to others through you. The it lists four aspects of Pastoral Identity: Attitude, Ability, Authority, and Accountability. It’s the slide about Attitude that I want to pray through this morning. Here are the bullet points under Attitude.

• Willingness to see ourselves objectively and acknowledge God’s grace in our own stories.
  • We will only be able to see ourselves objectively if we receive God’s grace for our failures.
  • Coming to terms with our weaknesses helps us have compassion for others and connect to them.
  • The suffering in our own lives (past and present) helps us connect with those in difficulty.
• The first trick is to have an Attitude of being honest with ourselves about our weaknesses.
• What role does fear play in how you or someone else is struggling through a trial?
  • Be careful to not use denial to avoid fear.
• Walking with someone through their trial requires you to be humble, honest and tender.
  • You cannot take away or fix the situation. Your role is to simply be there.

Oh my! That is pretty good stuff. I cannot minister until I have dealt with my own stuff. I certainly have my failings–too many to enumerate. But your grace released me from the guilt from those failings. you took a knife to the knot in the rope that ties you and me together in our relationship with Jesus’ death and bridged it back through His resurrection. Freedom! I have freedom, and it came through my being willing to let go.

When I pray for others, whether it is friends, family, or my children, if I know they do not have a relationship with you, one of the things I always pray for is that they will be able to let go. Let go of the pain they are hiding and holding on to. Let go of their shame. There is so much freedom to be had, and they just don’t know it.

I guess I’ll close with this. It’s the chorus of a song by Dennis Jernigan called “Song of Hope.” It works for not only non-Christians, but also for Christians who are holding on to their secrets and their shame:

And I wish I could take you heart into my heart
I wish I could show you just how good it feels to let go
Of the things you know are killing you
And cling to the only one who can heal
But I know if I did then it wouldn’t be you
Cuz you, you’re the only one choosing for you, it’s true

In Jesus’ name I pray,

Amen