I’m Not Apologizing Anymore

There is a difference between humbly carrying a calling and being ashamed of it. There is also a difference between acknowledging its cost and using that cost to make others feel sorry for us.

Sojourner:

We were watching Roberts Liardon teach about the high call of God when something he said reached into a place in me that needed healing.

He spoke about Paul’s words to Timothy:

“Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner.”
—2 Timothy 1:8

Paul had been called by Christ, but that calling had led him into circumstances that did not look particularly admirable to the natural eye. He was imprisoned. He wore chains. He was misunderstood, opposed, and rejected.

Yet Paul told Timothy, “Do not be ashamed of me.”

Those chains were not evidence that Paul had missed God. They were part of what it had cost him to obey God.

Roberts also spoke about a difficult season in his own life when he needed people who would not be ashamed to stand with him. Some did stand with him, and he said that their willingness to do so was one reason he remained in ministry.

That struck home with me.

I began to recognize how deeply I had allowed other people’s opinions to influence the way I saw myself. I had become ashamed of my calling, ashamed of the unusual path the Lord had taken me down, and even ashamed of some of the things He had done in my life.

Someone once called me strange, and it hurt me deeply. Instead of recognizing that my life had been shaped by an unusual calling, I began to see my difference as something shameful.

I started walking around apologizing.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry to inconvenience you.”

“I’m sorry that I need something.”

“I’m sorry that I don’t fit easily into your world.”

But while listening to that sermon, I realized that I should have been thanking God for what He had placed within me—not apologizing for it. My life did not look like everyone else’s because God had not trained me to do what everyone else was doing.

Then Roberts told about his first meeting with Kenneth E. Hagin. As he described it, they sat together without talking about very much because Brother Hagin was not particularly social. The next time Roberts met with him, he came prepared with Scriptures and subjects that would stir the gift within him.

I could relate to that more than I can explain.

Some people carry things that are not reached through ordinary conversation. You may have to approach the place where they live spiritually before you discover what God has deposited within them. If you judge them only by how easily they socialize, how well they fit into a group, or whether they understand the ordinary things everyone else seems to know, you may completely miss their treasure.

Suddenly, I saw what I had been doing.

I had been looking at myself through the eyes of people who did not understand my calling. Worse than that, I had allowed their lack of understanding to make me ashamed of something God had created.

In that sense, I realized I had been denying Jesus. I was not denying that I believed in Him, but I was shrinking away from the work He had done in me. I was apologizing for the life that following Him had produced.

So I repented.

And that repentance has held because it changed the way I think.

I am not apologizing anymore.

If I inconvenience someone, I will certainly try to be thoughtful. But I am no longer going to apologize for existing, for carrying a calling, for thinking deeply, or for being different.

If my presence is inconvenient—well, I am sorry they are doing it again.

Is that better? Lol.

Professor:

It is better—but let us make the distinction very clear.

You are not refusing humility. You are refusing shame.

Humility says, “What I carry came from God; therefore, I cannot boast as though I created it.”

Shame says, “What God placed within me makes me unacceptable; therefore, I must diminish it so that other people will be comfortable.”

Those are not the same thing.

True humility does not require you to deny the workmanship of God. In fact, agreeing with God about what He has made you is a form of humility. You are no longer insisting that the opinions of other people are more authoritative than His judgment.

Paul did not boast in his chains as though suffering made him superior. Neither did he hide them as though they made him inferior. He understood that obedience to Christ sometimes produces a life that other people will not understand.

Timothy needed courage not to interpret Paul through the eyes of Rome. Rome saw a prisoner. Timothy needed to remember that he was looking at an apostle.

That same principle applies on a smaller, personal scale. Someone may see “strange” where God sees consecrated. They may see socially awkward where God sees focused. They may see someone who has missed ordinary experiences, while God sees someone who remained in training.

Not every difference is evidence of a calling, of course, and none of us is beyond correction. But neither should we allow every misunderstanding to become a verdict against what God has formed within us.

Sojourner:

Then I listened to another sermon by Roberts about the cost of the call, and the Lord added another piece.

Roberts said that it is wrong to complain continually about how much the calling has cost us and how much we have had to sacrifice. We should not use the price we have paid to make people feel sorry for us.

That reached me too.

I have sometimes made people feel sorry for me because I already felt sorry enough for myself—and then I recruited them to agree with me.

I have talked about what I missed, what I gave up, how lonely the road has been, and how much it hurt not to be understood. Some of those losses were real, but I can see that repeatedly displaying them could become another way of seeking validation.

That has to change too.

Professor:

And there is the balance.

You do not need to apologize for the calling, and you do not need to advertise its cost.

You do not need to be ashamed of what obedience has produced in your life, but neither must you hand people an itemized account of your sacrifices and wait for their sympathy.

The call is not a punishment inflicted upon you. It is a sacred trust given to you.

Yes, obedience costs something. There are paths you did not take, relationships you could not keep, rooms in which you never quite belonged, and ordinary experiences you may have missed. Those things can be acknowledged honestly before God. Grief is not self-pity, and honesty is not complaining.

But the cost must eventually be placed upon the altar.

Otherwise, we can begin to use our sacrifices as evidence that other people owe us recognition, understanding, access, or affection. Without realizing it, we may ask them to repay a debt that was never theirs. The offering was made to God.

Spiritual maturity says:

“I will not be ashamed of what God has made me.”

And then it adds:

“I will not use what it cost me to make you feel sorry for me.”

That is freedom from both shame and self-pity.

Sojourner:

Then this is where I stand now:

I will not apologize for the work of God in me.

I will remain teachable. I will receive correction. I will try to treat people thoughtfully, and I will apologize when I have genuinely wronged someone.

But I will not apologize for being called.

I will not apologize for being different.

I will not apologize because everyone does not understand the road God has taken me down.

And I will not use the cost of that road to solicit sympathy.

I can honor the calling without glorifying myself. I can acknowledge the sacrifice without building my identity around what I lost. I can thank God for what He has given me without demanding that everyone else recognize it.

I am not apologizing anymore.

I am thanking God—and moving forward.