Fully trained and capable?
I’m always intrigued as to how the disciples felt ministering alongside Jesus. Noone seemed to be saying, “Jesus, I’ve got it!” Over in Luke 10, Jesus sends out seventy-two people. Not just the Twelve or even the the inner circle. Seventy-two ordinary followers who have seen Jesus ‘do His stuff’, sent ahead of him to every town and place he was about to go.
Read that commission carefully (v8-11). Heal the sick. Cast out demons. Declare the kingdom of God has come near. It’s not a gentle nudge. That is the full weight of Jesus’ own ministry handed to people who, by any measure of honesty, were well and truly out of their depth and desperately out of their comfort zone.
We hear the expression sometimes about the imposter syndrome. It’s a useful term and helps communicate what is going on for us personally at times.
In this scenario, as Jesus apostles or sends out the 72 you might wonder about impostor syndrome, but for them, they would have called reality. They weren’t impostors by any stretch of the imagination. They were absolutely unqualified for what they’d been asked to do; no formal training or track record. Sent out like lambs among wolves, with no money bag, no extra sandals, no backup plan. Just a word from the One who sent them. Perhaps that is where the penny drops for you?
That’s the design. Not an oversight. The design.
Jesus stripped away every alternative source of confidence precisely because the confidence was never meant to come from them. “Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals.” What that does, deep down, is remove every reason to trust yourself, and leave you with only one option: trust the one who sent you. The inadequacy isn’t the problem. It’s the point. It’s probably what helps!
What they discovered, experienced and encountered on their short ministry excursion is the thing that changes everything. They came back changed, amazed and astounded, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name.” Not in our name or because of our authority. In Your Name. They didn’t return having found confidence in themselves. They returned having found confidence in him. The obedient going, taught them what a ‘classroom’ environment never could. Even Judas was excited!
Impostor syndrome when it comes to any public ministry is worth naming honestly, because we may have felt it’s pinch. Sometimes it is genuine humility doing its quiet, healthy work, and on the other hand it can be simply a struggle to trust the One who called you in the first place? Be encouraged, Jesus knew what he was getting when he chose you, and his word still stands, “I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit.”
There are other challenges – you may not feel ready and face too many obstacles. Those elements; humility and caution to trust, feel identical from the inside, but they’re not the same thing at all. One leads you forward in dependence. The other keeps you paralysed waiting to feel ready, which, as you know, never comes.
Jesus didn’t send them because they were capable. He sent them because HE is capable, and they were in him. That distinction is everything, our benchmark. The weight of the commission never rested on their shoulders. It rested on his, and they were carriers of his authority, not generators of their own.
The question worth thinking over and over is this; when you feel that gap between the commission and your own capacity, are you measuring yourself against yourself? That measurement is never the right one.
Paul put it plainly: “Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God.” that works for all areas of faith and obedience.
Here’s the punch line: the seventy-two went. Inadequate, under-resourced, unsure.
And the kingdom moved.
