In an interview with Chuck Swindoll, he recalls: “I remember my wife hearing me early on when I was preaching as a senior pastor. It happened to be in New England. She said to me as I mentioned the struggle of the morning, “I wish you were just who you are more.”<\/p>\n
I said, “I am who I am.” She said, “No, when you stand up to preach, you change. I just enjoy being with you, and you’re fun to be with; but you’re not fun to be with when you’re in the pulpit.” I said, “Well, I’m not there to be a comedian.” She said, “You’re not a comedian at home, but you’re real.” Then she said, “So when you’re real, you certainly have touches of humor, and that wouldn’t hurt either. I would like to see the reality of your personality come out a little more.”<\/p>\n
Well, you know I’ve learned that the voice of the Holy Spirit is often very close to the voice of one’s wife! The Lord spoke to me that day in a very real way, and I began a journey of giving myself permission—I would use those words—I need to give myself permission to be who I am. It takes years to learn who you are.<\/p>\n
Some preachers are busy all their lives trying to be who someone else wishes they were. So they’re not themselves. When I see that in young preachers, and sometimes in older preachers, my heart goes out to them because I remember the struggle of that. I’m no longer struggling with who I am. Warts and all, flaws and all, I am who am. I don’t try to hide it; and because I don’t, I’m freer. I don’t spend as much time struggling with what they may think or how they may feel.”<\/p>\n
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In an interview with Chuck Swindoll, he recalls: “I remember my wife hearing me early on when I was preaching as a senior pastor. It happened to be in New England. She said to me as I mentioned the struggle of the morning, “I wish you were just who you are more.” I said, “I … Continue reading “Chuck Swindoll: On Authenticity”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34468\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}