A Prayer for the Ones Who Don’t Feel Great at Anything
By Peyton Garland
Bible Reading
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” - Psalm 23:6
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I masquerade embarrassing mediocrity that most might mistake for success. I can hide hordes of dirty laundry in my bedroom closet and close the door before company arrives, so my house looks spotless and organized on a casual Tuesday afternoon. I can boast in my English degree, all its awards and honors, without ever telling you that the only reason I majored in English was because I failed out of my first Pre-Med biology class. I can play the happy wife at dinner to ensure you have no clue my husband and I got into a heated tiff on the car ride over.
It can look like my favorite hobby is playing on the floor with my tike, when, in truth, there are so many times I just put on his little dancing fruit videos so I can curl up in a corner and cry, scream into a pillow, sob … let out whatever emotion erupts first. I can make you think I’m a devoted Christian who doubts nothing. It’s as easy as posting a Bible verse on social media and never mentioning just how often I’m not so sure I see God as kind, merciful, and truly for me.
I’m good at many things—often trivial and fake things—but I’m not sure I’m great at anything worthwhile. My heart often feels too anxious, too heavy, too confused, to believe my messy life has the spiritual substance to shift someone else’s axis for good, let alone please God. Can you relate?
I know King David could. He’s known for sleeping with a married woman and deviously having her husband killed in the name of honor. He also had a terrible knack for raising questionable sons. One tried to rape his own sister, and the other, King Solomon, is quite famous for his hundreds of concubines. Despite David’s outward regality, he, too, had his own laundry basket of crinkled, smelly clothes to shove into a bedroom closet. And I imagine his heart was just as stressed, shame-ridden, and second best as mine and yours (Psalm 51). Yet, David was part of Christ’s lineage; he was the first true chosen king of Israel. God’s loyalty to David is something to pause and reflect on, and I believe one of the most famous scriptures of all, Psalm 23, hints at what made David a ‘hero’ of the faith.
I’m teaching my one-year-old son this portion of Scripture. For now, he can barely say more than “Mama” and “Dada,” but I pray these words will eventually become memory and the memory will become meaning when he’s old enough for valleys and shadows and death. But as I’m teaching him this classic psalm, I’m teaching myself bits and pieces, powerful pieces, that never struck me until now. The last verse, verse 6, is written in an order that caught my attention, particularly the first half: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me…”
I’m more of a visual learner, so I was picturing, like The Pilgrim’s Progress, the personification of Goodness and Mercy. I made them little figurines in my mind and placed them on a path following me—meaning they were behind me. Now, if something, anything, is following me, then I must be moving forward. It’s a present-tense verb, implying that something is actively taking place. And here, in Psalm 23:6, the key action is me—and you—walking through this life, moving forward, taking steps—even when we know, thanks to verse 4, there will be valleys and shadows and death.
Despite the uneven, embarrassing scale of what David was good at (risqué and dad-failing things) versus all the noble things he wasn’t great at, perhaps what made him special was his simple act of taking another step forward. His faith in God’s goodness and mercy made his very existence–failures and all—a great, unbeatable, history-changing picture of the hope that will follow us all the days of our lives. This willingness to wake up and plow forward, trying again at following God’s perfect, gracious example of law and love blended, is what makes our stories more than mundane.
Perhaps you feel like me and King David: good at a few things that don’t really matter and only great at messing things up. But take heart! The good news is you are in good company—and I’m not talking about me or King David. If you are living and breathing, if you are trying your best to believe in God’s goodness, you are in the presence of Hope. You have the chance to be great at faith, trusting in what you can’t see and in Whom you believe. So keep taking steps forward, allowing God’s glory to come behind your messes to orchestrate miracles.
Let’s Pray:
God, I don’t feel great at anything besides trying and failing—in my work, in my marriage, in motherhood, in my creative pursuits—at everything. Help me see beyond my failures and remember that because of your goodness and mercy, I have a reason to try again, to believe in hope, and to keep moving forward. Thank you for such grace, God.
In your holy name, Amen.
Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Boonyachoat
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