My constant struggle with feeling useless

An even more cumbersome (if more accurate) title for this post would be, “My ongoing battle with feeling completely useless, worthless and alone”–ha!

Ugh.

If I remember correctly, Christian counselor Paul Tripp once shared about a particularly difficult counseling case he had. Failing to discern his counselee’s underlying problem after a number of unsuccessful sessions, Tripp asked–out of relative desperation, “Are there any passages of Scripture you don’t particularly care for?”

It’s an intriguing question, one that I’ve often asked myself.

(As an aside, the counselee responded–again, if memory serves–with something like, “Yeah, actually, I really don’t like the passages in the Bible where God’s people are called ‘sheep.’ I don’t want to be called a sheep.” Tripp now had a definite lead.)

When I have asked that question, several texts come to mind, but none more immediately than Jesus’ words in Luke 12:

“…For everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”

It makes my soul ache.

I grew up in a Christian home and have always had incredibly supportive parents and siblings. Somewhere in junior high God gave me a deep and abiding love for the Scriptures that has only grown stronger. I grew up in a solid, gospel-preaching church and attended a great church in college. My undergrad experience (at the Air Force Academy), both spiritually and professionally, was a time of great growth: spiritually, I received my call to pastoral ministry while serving in a local church’s “college and career” group; professionally, I thrived on the leadership challenges presented at the Academy, serving as a squadron commander my senior year and received the coveted “outstanding squadron commander” award–my point being simply that, through much trial and error, I had learned a meaningful amount about organizational leadership by my 22nd year.

As a layperson, prior to entering ministry, I had some very rewarding, if at times challenging, experiences in lay ministry, helping out with youth ministry, as well as serving as a deacon and elder prior to going to seminary, learning the nuts and bolts of pastoral care, as well as the (inevitable) politics of a church. I then attended Covenant Seminary, having a very rich and rewarding experience, with great summer internships to boot. After that, my family and I hopped the puddle to the UK, where we lived for four years while I received a PhD in, well, Paul’s letters.

Blah, blah, blah.

One could easily critique the above as being too shallow or insubstantial, “fleshly.” But as early as 1998-99, when I first felt a call to pastoral ministry, I earnestly and prayerfully sought (however poorly) to be equipped to this end. And I truly feel that, in many ways–through victories and defeats, failures and setbacks, joys and sorrows, mentors and ministry partners–God has done so:

God has given me so much. He has entrusted me with so much.

But as I look back over these years, especially the years since leaving seminary in 2008 (yes, I agree, 12 years isn’t that long), I all too often think–and feel free to judge away, “Wow, Clark, you have been given so much, and what do you have to show for it all?”

And 2020 hasn’t exactly helped.

I suspect that many reading this might (accurately?) surmise that by saying this I am–to use the Christianese vernacular–“works oriented.” Perhaps I’m in denial, but I really don’t agree–at least not all that much. This isn’t about earning my salvation or meriting greater favor with God.

So what is it about?

Well, at the very least, it’s about what the context of Jesus’ statement above is about–namely, being faithful as a servant of one’s master. In fact, it’s in this context that we find my favorite statement of Christology in the entire New Testament:

“It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them.”

(Isn’t that absolutely, insanely amazing? Jesus’ servant heart isn’t just something to associate with his lowly, first coming. Rather, when he returns, he’ll serve all who are watching for him. How beautiful is that?)

Who wouldn’t want to faithfully serve a master like that?

It’s been so difficult–for me–to know if I’m being faithful as his servant with all that he’s given me. Here’s a rather silly onslaught of metaphors that I’ve used over the years to describe my gnawing sense of uselessness (again, feel free to judge away):

– at times I’ve felt like a beast of burden, made to help around the farm, but only ever in the pasture eating

– at times I’ve felt like an army medic on the front line: when he hears the urgent cry for a medical attention, he musters all his training and courage and makes his way to the wounded soldier, only to be too late or to somehow make things worse

– I once had a Air Force pilot tell me that, when his squadron deployed to Iraq for the Gulf War, his commander called him in and said that they needed someone to stay back and watch over the unit facilities, etc., while the rest of the squadron was gone; he was the guy; all too often I’ve felt like that guy

– (another medical metaphor) at times I feel like a nurse or doctor, whose patients have entered the waiting room; but when each is called, no one actually gets up–why?–because, for whatever reason, no one really wants to actually see the nurse/doctor

– at times I feel like a chef who just loves to cook/bake/grill (whatever): I enthusiastically prepare a meal that I think will be enjoyable to most everyone, and I (naively? presumptuously?) try to share it with whomever; and they ever so politely decline and pull out their can of… spam… instead.

Surely there’s a good measure of self-pity and self-importance in all of this, both of which require regular attention. It’s undeniably true: I can read Jesus’ scathing descriptions of religious leaders–“they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues”–and I know I’ve got some urgent and ongoing repentance to do. At times, I do want to be “kind of a big deal,” although, for reasons I can’t fully articulate, those times have become relatively few and far between. Perhaps it’s the words of my sage mom that have finally set in a bit: “Bruce, you need to stop taking yourself so seriously.”

Thanks, Mom. I really do listen.

And undoubtedly it’s essential to ask: what things make me feel useful (or useless), and why those? Why not others?

But, given all the above, there’s also just this overwhelming sense that the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. And I have this blessing/curse of walking into a room and just feeling people’s pain–through their body posture, the inflection in their voice (or silence), and the myriad of “tells” that we humans have. There’s so much need, but here’s the thing:

for the most part, most people (myself included) have no idea how great their need is; they don’t really want help to begin with; and they have absolutely no idea what they’re missing out on; that is, they have no idea how much better things could be.

There are further important complicating factors to all this that I’ll just touch on:

For example, as an adult, I’ve experienced a good bit of betrayal, more so than most, I guess (so several mentors and counselors have told me). Or consider the fact that, for mysterious, bittersweet, yet providential reasons, we’ve moved around a good bit, preventing us from seeing the fruit of any seeds we’ve sown. And then there’s this: not too long ago, my counselor asked me: “Bruce, why don’t you ever push back when people accuse you of something? Why don’t you ever defend yourself?” I sat there silently, my mind racing for an answer; after about a very long, futile (useless?) minute, I started bawling.

I’ve struggled to answer that question for a while now. I still don’t really know the answer is, but I’m trying to lovingly, respectfully “push back” more often, regardless. My provisional answer is twofold: (1) as humans, our unfortunate first response to accusation is to be defensive; maybe there’s something I’m missing, and this accusation will help; (2) as a 6’2″, 195 lb, white male, former military, father, husband, pastor and professor, somehow I am responsible for most everything that goes wrong; hence, when things do go wrong, I feel not only (you guessed it) useless, but guilty and even rather worthless: who tries to help and only makes things worse?

I do, it seems.

Speaking of worthlessness–LOL, I recall how a friend of mine from 15-20 years ago, who was probably 6’3″ and 225 lbs, an Italian from Chicago, shared with me about the verbal abuse he received as a kid from his father: “If someone tells you enough times that you’re a piece of crap, you begin to believe them.” My immediate response to that was twofold: first, I cried and then got rather angry; second, I realized I couldn’t begin to begin to relate to that.

You may not believe this (and that’s fine), but today I can substantially relate to that. The encounters I’ve had with people throughout my adult life, especially in pastoral ministry, have brought me to the place where it’s an all-out daily battle to believe that I have much worth: from verbal assaults to gossip and slander to conflict avoidance (by others) to major offensives of friendly fire to all manner of passive-aggressive, plausibly deniable behaviors–let’s just say it’s taken a big toll. Reckless words from years ago can still haunt and hurt me all over again, if I’m not vigilant. At times I’ve wondered–and I say this with tongue mostly in cheek–if people think, “Bruce Clark… that sounds like the name for a superhero… Why don’t we find out if he’s bulletproof? No, wait, let’s just go nuclear first thing, and see what happens.”

And then there are the thousand tiny, seemingly insignificant things that, taken together, really add up: I text a couple to let them know I’m praying for them… no response… from either of them. To see if someone is free for lunch sometime, I text them. Twice. No response.

I have little doubt that my struggle with uselessness and worthlessness (which leads to loneliness, because, you know, everyone else is surely making a big difference except me–ha!!) is accentuated by my particular temperament. Yet even when I’m accounting for that, the feelings of uselessness can still be crushing.

The prophecy of Isaiah speaks of a mysterious “servant” figure, someone who is both identified with God’s people and yet distinct from them: he will suffer greatly in order to save God’s people; enigmatically, by his wounds, they will somehow be healed. This servant, we learn in Isaiah 49, is an agent of God’s will in a really cool way. Listen in, as he speaks of being God’s secret weapon:

Listen to me, you islands;
hear this, you distant nations:
Before I was born, the LORD called me;
from my birth he has made mention of my name.

He made my mouth like a sharpened sword,
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me into a polished arrow
and concealed me in his quiver.

He said to me, “You are my servant, Israel,
in whom I will display my splendor.”

Isn’t that just breath-takingly awesome? How sly of God! And yet listen to what this “servant” says next:

But I said, “I have labored in vain;
I have spent my strength for nothing at all.”
(The Hebrew of this second line could even be translated: For desolation and futility have I expended my strength)

Given the previous verses, could this be more jarring? The servant goes from hero to zero in less than a verse. Though selected as God’s secret weapon, once sent forth, he surveys his strength-sapping service, and it all seems so supremely worthless. It would be difficult to overstate how meaningful, how moving this is to me (even now the tears are coming, though I’ve read this text for the umpteenth time):

here is One whose fidelity feels like futility.

But it’s not his final word. No, he (defiantly?) asserts:

Yet what is due me is in the LORD’s hand,
and my reward is with my God.

This is faith. And hope. A faith and hope that cannot make sense of anything they see, yet find in God’s infinite wisdom and perfect justice an antidote sufficient to dull–and even do away with?–the aching uselessness that is sabotaging the servant’s senses, now that all his strength is gone. It seems that through his suffering the servant has found a freedom from the human–and especially modern Western?–fixation on efficiency and productivity, that ancient idolatrous act, of which Isaiah also speaks, of bowing down to what our hands have made.

Father, grant me that freedom. Then I will at long last be what I am not: meek.

The New Testament uses Isaiah’s portrayal of the suffering servant to describe Jesus’ ministry, and how very fitting: Jesus came as the Solution, but he was treated as the Problem. He received the empowering Spirit from his Father in Heaven; but he, being meek and lowly of heart, rejected worldly power and prestige, as offered by the Tempter. He came as the anointed of Heaven, but was called an agent of hell. He was the Truth but was denounced as a deceiver. He came to give life but was given death. He came to bless but received curse and himself became a curse. He was fully faithful yet fully forsaken.

Like one from who men hide their faces,
he was despised, and we assigned no worth to him…
we considered him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

This is hardly Scripture’s last word on my–our?–feelings of uselessness, but it’s a very formidable first word. Each day I seek to join Him who went (all the way) down believing that woven into the very fabric of the cosmos by its Creator and Judge is the following first principle:

Whoever humbles himself will be exalted.