A youth pastor describes years of spiritual isolation while serving in ministry, convinced that revealing his struggles would lead to rejection by others and God. He learned to perform faith outwardly, behaving well enough to earn acceptance while battling shame and the belief that he was fundamentally unworthy.
Chapters
There were a couple times. I tried reaching out to my youth pastor once, but he, he had his own struggles and hadn't overcome them, so he didn't know how to help me. I reached out to another kid in the youth group who he just didn't wrestle with the same thing, so he didn't know how to help me. But those were the only two people I ever remember talking to about it. And so, you know, Satan will isolate us. You know, scripture talks about he's a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. And we know the, the illustration of the pride of lions. You know, over in Africa, they' try and isolate one animal from the herd and then they can overcome. Right. And so anyway, I was isolated, but part of it was self imposed because I thought I believed the lie that if people knew me, they would reject me. If people really knew what was going on inside, they couldn't handle it. And I actually projected that onto God too. Like I knew God is love, so he can't help but love me. But he kind of regrets making a decision to save me because he surely he can't like me. So with this performance, this outward, I learned how to do church. Outwardly, I had this performance mindset of where I'm not smart enough, I'm not good enough, I'm too dirty, but if I behave well enough, then I can be accepted. So, you know, here I was then as a young married, still struggling with all these things inside, in seminary as a, as a pastoral intern and then a youth pastor struggling with all these things.
