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Ever Wanted to Be a Mailman?

I have. The concept of knowing my day’s work is done when I get to the bottom of a canvas sack—what satisfaction! No guilt over the number of students for whom I can’t seem to find adequate time. No frustration about the campuses that aren’t being reached as effectively as I’d like. No pain from dealing with those who once committed themselves to Jesus and are now distancing themselves from the things of God. No pressure to compete and perform for an audience that expects mtv splash. No administrative tasks. No parents to answer to. No destroyed facilities to repair. Just a heavy bag, my two feet, and a few over-aggressive canines to contend with.

Then—on the days when being a mail carrier seems a bit extreme—I at least wish God would send me a one-page fax defining a more concise job description than the impossible one I’ve written. The one I feel pressured to fulfill if I’m ever going to hear, “Well done my good and faithful youth worker.”

But I know the truth. And so do you. The truth is that much of what you and I feel “called” to do—you know, the multiple plate spinning act—wouldn’t even make the fax page.

Have you ever asked yourself, “What really drives me to do all this stuff?” All the things that seem so important when I first set out to accomplish them? All the things that could eventually cause my demise or the demise of my family? Are these things just part of what it takes to make it as a youth worker?

What is it that drives us to the point of sacrifice upon sacrifice? Loving God? Of course. Loving kids? Absolutely.

Fear of failure? Uh, wait a minute...

Statistics indicate that fear of failure is the primary motivator for more than 90 percent of pastors. Yep. 90 percent. But perhaps even more alarming is the fear of being, well... Average.

When I take a long, hard look at my life, I realize that far too much of what drives me is the need to prove myself. It’s what Family Building author George Reekers describes as the self-declaration: “I’m not a nobody.” For me, overachieving wasn’t about doing more, it was about doing enough to compensate for my perceived inadequacy. Merely climbing out of the hole so I could just get to zero.

I wanted to prove to my past and present phantoms—Dad, the boss, students, church, the youth ministry world—that “I’m not a nobody!” I prided myself on ministry successes, pleasing students and parents, and striving hard to pull ministry rabbits out of ministry hats.

But after years of playing to the judges in the grandstands of my life, I decided to get real. That wasn’t easy. It took work. Getting honest about my felt inadequacies drove me to some deep reconciliation issues.

First I had to be reconciled to God. This was a call to reconciliation that went beyond salvation. God called me to let him be my adequacy. 2 Corinthians 3:5b says, “Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant.” (NASB) God, help me to allow you to be adequate enough for me. Thank you for your indescribably more-than-adequate, all-sufficient gift of salvation through Jesus.

Then I had to be reconciled to my past. 1 Corinthians 13:11b says, “When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” For me, the implications were clear: I had to choose to be adult enough to quit trying to settle the score with my past, the voices and phantoms of which really didn’t matter anymore. God, give me the courage to move forward in light of the compulsion I feel to seek justice because of those who may have hurt me in the past.

I had to be reconciled to who God created me to be. I’m a Hispanic (a person of color) who grew up in the ’60s and ’70s, who felt a huge need to be assimilated into white America. But God made me brown, and at the same created me in his image, with all the rights and privileges as his child. God, thank you for who you’ve uniquely created me to be. Thank you for your sovereign involvement in my life.

But that wasn’t all. I had to become a reconciler myself. That meant helping teens to turn their hearts to their Creator and to their parents—and helping others become reconciled with their pasts, their identities, and their motives in ministry. And as a reconciled reconciler, I need to model and encourage people to courageously cross racial and cultural barriers. God, as you are restoring and renewing me, help me to be a person of reconciliation—turning hearts back to you, restoring parents and teens, encouraging the growth and purity of those with whom I come in contact, and to bridge people across racial and cultural barriers.

This stuff isn’t easy. I still struggle. But more and more these days, I sense the Holy Spirit calling me out of my Martha-like tendencies to become more of a person like Mary—a disciple who’ll simply sit at Jesus’ feet.

I know whom I serve. I know I really only have to play for an audience of one. God is my greatest fan—and he’s made me adequate through Christ.

Larry Acosta is executive director of the Hispanic Ministry Center in Santa Ana, California (an organization committed to training urban youth workers), and its outreach arm, KIDWORKS, which ministers to at-risk communities for Christ. Before he began at the center four years ago, Larry was a youth worker for 13 years at Grace Church in Cypress, California.