Our society values competence. It’s an essential requirement of every job description. It’s what makes life function. Without competence we’re ignorant buffoons, bumbling around Laurel-and-Hardy style, and while slapstick may be a valid comedy form, it’s not a good prescription for life. Incompetent doctors kill patients. Incompetent teachers lead to disengaged learners. Incompetent police lead to increases in crime. Incompetence is the ultimate sin.
But in the Christian life, competence is not the bottom line, nor incompetence the worst sin. Competence is not the be-all and end-all of faith. In fact, it barely registers on God’s list of requirements. This is not because God is a bumbling buffoon, but because He operates on a different set of principles.
Competence depends on our abilities, skills and actions and as such very easily leads to a reliance on these abilities, skills and actions as the way to live. Faith asks us to surrender all we have and are to God, recognising that our competence will never be enough to lead us to God. Our righteousness will never be pure enough, clean enough, good enough to bring us to God’s standards. There has to be a repudiation of our skillset and a complete dependence on God for us to be counted righteous before God. Only when we have acknowledged our own spiritual bankruptcy can we become rich in God. Only when we have tasted our utter powerlessness can we receive the power of God. Only when we have understood our own emptiness can we receive God’s fulness. Only when we have acknowledge that our competence is never going to get the seal of God’s approval can we bask in the approval He freely bestows on His children.
There is no shortcut to God, no ‘surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practised in your spare time.’ (Matt 7:13-14, The Message) The way to God is narrow. It’s the way of the cross, which, to the eyes of the world, looks like the most incompetent method ever for saving people, but which God says is ‘the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.’ (Rom 1:16)
On the other hand, this way leads to God-competence, which is far more effective. Paul says, ‘not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant – not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.’ (2 Cor 3:5-6) The only validation we need is God’s. The only way we receive this is by denying ourselves, taking up our cross and following Jesus. (Mk 8:34)
Turn your back on the cult of competence and cultivate God-confidence. E. M. Bounds writes challengingly: ‘Self-esteem, self-ability in some pernicious shape, has defamed and violated the temple, which should be held sacred for God.’ (‘E. M. Bounds onf Prayer’, P 468) Only death to self and crucifixion to the world can lead to spiritual life. Competence, if it robs us of our dependency on God, is no gain. Only God can satisfy.