I like to be competent. I like to make people happy. I like to say "Yes." I like to be busy and successful. I like changing the world for people. I like that stuff. I really do.
But, sometimes I say "Yes" to too many things and then I start dropping plates. And, because the way my life is arranged, I end up disappointing people that I care deeply about. I feel embarassed, horrible and like a failure. This ends up freezing me up and it all gets worse.
Finally, I push my way through and get things done, but not as well as if they had been done right the first time I feel awful and it lingers and lingers for years. It's amazing how I can so easily pull out my mistakes from years and years ago and flog myself bloody. The people whom I have let down may even give me a pass and forgive me, but I have such a hard time letting myself off the hook.
What is even worse, is that I counsel people who do the same thing and I can help them move on. But I don't let myself move on.
The Apostle Paul talks about this in the end of Romans 7 where he talks about the "wretched man" that he feels he is. He doesn't do what he wants to do and he does what he doesn't want to do. Maybe you don't have this problem, but ol' Paul and I do. We want to bring change and redemption to a hurting and damaged world. We want to be carriers of light into the darkness. We want to do so many good things. But, we mess up. We fail. We let people down.
Just when I start to feel good about what's going on in my life, I mess up again. Sure, I'm not going to jail, nor have I had a moral failure. But, still ... I have let people down that I care about. These are the things that haunt my heart. These are the failures that I flog myself with.
Pray for me. Pray that I'll move out of some of my commitments in a way that allows them to flourish, so that I can actually keep all my plates spinning without having some drop and shatter on the floor.
harbarger theory: sometimes there gets to be so many plates spinning that some start to fall.
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