You can’t pretend you are someone else for very long.
Keeping secrets is dangerous, but keeping them from yourself is the most dangerous of all. I don’t want to know yours, but if my mission exposes me to secrets, I can keep them. I still hold stuff in confidence according to agreements I signed long ago. This, while I know secrecy is a blatant violation of God’s Laws. That is, I recognize domains and authority.
The shepherd doesn’t want any authority, but knows God has appointed him to it. He accepts the decisions of God, even when they come through men who hate God. The shepherd knows how human authority and politics work. As a Christian Mystic, I remain disentangled from the results; I am faithful to my appointed duties. Whatever I am building is not of this world.
The utility of this is placing me where He wants to display His glory. It would be like a divine secret agent, but I would never hide my ethical and moral philosophy. Rather, they will likely remain incomprehensible to anyone tied to this realm of existence. My morals are mysterious, not secret. I have boundaries and I can usually summarize them for any worldly context. I can’t imagine a need to hide from anyone where those boundaries are.
I’m not ambitious with hidden agendas. I’m not keeping any options open for my own welfare because I’m not that interested in human-grade welfare in the first place. I’m not that interested in my own interests, as most folks would think of it. My real agenda rests in Heaven, so I can afford a large measure of self-denial. So I’m not looking for an opportunity like a stepping stone to greater things — I already have the greater things. I’m looking for a place to exercise my gifts for their own sake.
I prosper under pressure. Not that I always get impossible things done, but I tend to do well even when there’s too much to do. I’m glad to hear about my superior’s priorities and willing to pursue them honestly because I really don’t have any of my own. That is, my own priority is blessing everyone I can reach, and I make no pretense that “blessing” means fixing anything in this world. I’ll do what the boss wants because he wants it, unless I really can’t. Then I’ll tell him and try to explain why I can’t, and leave if he can’t tolerate that. There’s no conflict. I’m not interested in fixing his problems or setting things right for the world. I’m convinced that simply is not possible. So I relax under pressure.
Coworkers are not my problem. I might have to deal with them, but I view them as a variable. I accept them as a part of my reality and won’t waste much time fantasizing about what they could be if they would simply change. Changing them is not my mission; God takes care of that for me. I can’t imagine anything anyone could offer that would persuade me to subvert the process and procedures. Not in the sense of hide-bound, but I have no needs that would benefit from sneaking past the boundaries. I’ll be faithful to what I can tell is the intent of the rules without any kind of wild semantic wrangling. I prefer sticking with the rules as simply as possible, even though I know no human can write rules that fit every possible variation.
I don’t give up; I’ll keep trying when I’m absolutely certain I’ll fail. You’ll get 100% of my human resources. My primary drive is commitment, not results. When I’m comfortable that God wants me involved in something, obeying the boss is obeying God. Frankly, I don’t want to be in the boss’s place. I’m content to make his job possible, even pleasant. I want to be an asset, a solution and not a problem. I’m content with the things I know I should handle. I’ll let the boss take all the credit and try to make him look good. My reward comes from obeying God that way.
This is who I am.
