I'm not no account, just ignorant

One of the main struggles right now, is feeling no account. I can no longer do many of the things I could do with a decent degree of competency back home. Back home, if asked to preach a sermon, no problem. I'm not saying it would be anything great, but I could do it. But in French, it's not possible. To express even the simplest of ideas in French right now requires a great deal of effort.

Before this experience of language learning, I don't think I realized how much I relied on my competency to feel important. I found significance in being an engineer, a good student, being able to preach/teach, etc. Now that my competency is gone, I'm needing to find significance in something else. I'm being reminded of a truth that I've known before but had not fully appreciated. The truth is that I am "in Christ." 

The Bible speaks often of the Christian being "in Christ," which is truly a loaded statement. One aspect of being "in Christ" is that my significance is now found in the fact that I'm associated with Christ. The fact that through faith I am associated with Christ and therefore a child of God, I don't need to find significance in my competency. Regardless of how my situation changes, I will always have significance because of my relationship with Christ. 

This truth has proven to be extremely encouraging as I don't see myself becoming very competent again real soon. And finally, pray that as my competency slowly increases, that my feeling of significance does not simultaneously shift back to competency and away from God.