Have you ever heard of “imposter syndrome?”
Yeah, me neither. Until a professional leadership coach explained it to me, I didn't realize that even the most confident leaders sometimes secretly doubt they’re up to the task.
My own version of that feeling turned out to be a wonderful invitation to repentance and humility. Which, when genuinely embraced, brings peace and rest rather than the frenzied feelings of chaos and “expectations.”
The Good News of the timeless Orthodox Faith is this: we are free to look honestly at our own shortcomings without shame, BECAUSE our confidence rests in Jesus Christ, not in ourselves.
But we live in a “shame” culture. We are shamed for our skin color, our income, our beliefs. We are told our country is evil and our Faith is silly and useless. This bombardment has one goal: destruction. I suspect this is secretly what the shamers want. After all, it could never actually be MY fault!
So what is the alternative?
“Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not in a written code but in the Spirit; for the written code kills, but the Spirit gives life.”
He IS competent. I am dependent.
Today’s Lesson: 2 Corinthians 3:4-11
Brethren, such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not in a written code but in the Spirit; for the written code kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Now if the dispensation of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such splendor that the Israelites could not look at Moses’ face because of its brightness, fading as this was, will not the dispensation of the Spirit be attended with greater splendor? For if there was splendor in the dispensation of condemnation, the dispensation of righteousness must far exceed it in splendor. Indeed, in this case, what once had splendor has come to have no splendor at all, because of the splendor that surpasses it. For if what faded away came with splendor, what is permanent must have much more splendor.
Paul is still making his case to the Corinthians. Critics have questioned his credentials, his authority, his right to speak. And rather than producing a resume, he does something unexpected.
He agrees that he is not sufficient in himself.
And then he points to the Source that makes him sufficient anyway.
This is not false modesty. This is not a rhetorical maneuver. This is the operating logic of the entire Christian life, from the least-known layperson to the greatest Apostle. Our competence is not our own.
It comes from God.
And that changes everything about how we relate to our failures, our weaknesses, and the cultural weight of shame we are told to carry.
What Can We Take From This?
First, shame has no hold on me IF my confidence is in Jesus Christ.
This is the liberating alternative to “imposter syndrome.” The imposter worries because her entire credibility rests on her own performance. And she knows, in her most honest moments, that she is not always equal to it.
The Christian has a different foundation.
“Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God.”
Not through my track record. Not through my consistency. Not through my ability to maintain a respectable spiritual performance. Through Christ.
This means I am free to actually look at my weak places without shame. I do not need to perform my way out of them. I do not need to hide them so no one finds me out.
The Normal Orthodox life invites me to bring them into the light through the genuine, ongoing practice of metanoia (repentance): not a single crisis-moment confession, but a lifestyle of turning honestly toward Christ and away from whatever is not Him.
And in that humility, in that repentance, I connect in a deeper way with Jesus Christ, Who IS my confidence.
He is competent. I am dependent. When I finally get that order right, the shame falls away.
Next, shame flows from a focus on rules and regulations.
To be sure, St. Paul is not being dismissive of The Law of Moses. It was beautiful. The Temple was magnificent. The vestments of the priesthood were stunning. The liturgy of the Temple was ordered and profound. The Law taught the world eternally valuable principles.
After all, where do you think we get all our beauty in Orthodoxy?
But all The Law could ultimately do was reveal our incompetence. It proved that, no matter how hard we might try, we still stumble. We still fall short.
“The written code kills” — not because it is evil, but because it is complete truth without the power to transform the one reading it. You could carry the tablets and remain unchanged inside.
The Law was a mirror. And the mirror was beautiful. But mirrors cannot fix what they show.
Shame flows from any system that hands you the mirror and says “Now live up to it.” It does not matter whether the mirror is The Law of Moses or the cultural demands of the moment or the unspoken social expectations of your own community.
Any standard that exposes your failure without providing the power to overcome it becomes a mechanism of shame. All our politics of envy and shame and greed is summed up in this insight!
We needed something more than a mirror. We needed a Savior. And what The Law could not do, the Spirit of the living God can.
Finally, shame melts in the Face of Jesus Christ.
If The Law, in all its genuine splendor, ultimately could not give us life, then how much more splendorous is the Spirit Who actually does?
“The dispensation of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such splendor that the Israelites could not look at Moses’ face because of its brightness.”
That splendor was real. It was not nothing.
But St. Paul says this: what once had splendor has come to have no splendor at all, because the splendor that surpasses it makes even the original look dim by comparison. Moses’ face glowed; THEN IT FADED!
You have seen this effect. Step inside a dark room, and a candle looks impressive. Light that same candle at noon on a summer day, and you can barely tell it is lit.
The splendor of The Law was the candle. The Holy Spirit is the sun.
This is what Orthodox Christianity offers: not a better set of rules, not a more sophisticated moral framework, not an improved mirror. But a “dispensation of righteousness” so permanent, so living, so rooted in the actual life of Jesus Christ given to us by the Spirit, that the shame-based bookkeeping of every lesser system simply cannot compete. It has come to have no splendor at all, by comparison.
He transforms you from the inside. That transformation never fades. You’re invited to trade the temporary for the eternal!
Martyrs Aniketos and Photios of Nicomedia
Aniketos was a military official in the city of Nicomedia. When Diocletian erected a device of execution in the city square to frighten the Christians, Aniketos walked out and denounced the emperor to his face.
They tortured him. Lions became gentle. The wheel stopped. The boiling tin went cold.
When his nephew Photios saw what was happening, he stood beside his uncle and turned to the emperor: “O idol-worshipper, your gods are nothing!”
Diocletian shifted tactics. “Worship our gods, and I shall give you glory and riches.”
The martyrs answered: “May you perish with your honor and riches.”
Their confidence was not in themselves. And it proved unbreakable.
Your Response Today
Are you feeling the weight of your failures and your mistakes today?
Good. That honest self-knowledge is not the enemy. It is the beginning.
Instead of letting it descend into shame, bring it somewhere more useful: to the foot of the Cross, to your confessor, to an honest conversation with God. That is what the Normal Orthodox life is designed for. Not to perform your way past your weakness, but to bring that weakness into the light where the Spirit transforms you.
Today, simply pray:
“Lord Jesus Christ, I am not competent in myself. You already know this, and You love me anyway. Shift my confidence from myself to You. Let my dependence on You be the most solid thing about me. And make me Orthodox on Purpose, not by my own strength, but by Yours.”
Being Orthodox on Purpose means releasing the exhausting work of being competent on your own and resting your confidence, daily and honestly, in the One Who actually is.
P.S. With anthems of praise, you faithful, let us all extol the warriors of God, the yoke-pair of Christ’s majesty; and let all of us who love martyrs’ contests crown with our hymns of song the staunch heralds of piety, who truly were friends and lovers of our God.
Fr. Barnabas Powell is the parish priest at Sts. Raphael, Nicholas, and Irene Greek Orthodox Church in Cumming, GA. He is also the founder of Faith Encouraged Ministries and produces the Faith Encouraged Daily Devotional on Substack. Watch the Faith Encouraged YouTube Channel here - https://www.youtube.com/@FaithEncouragedTV
I just learned about the “imposter syndrome” a couple of weeks ago when preparing for a session with my executive coach. I had reviewed a patent application for one of my inventions that I had written a couple of years ago and realized that it was a useful idea; a novel invention that deserved to be shared with others in the field of metallurgical science and not a “failure” to the wim of the patent examination process.