God Is Not Your Auditor

The audit team was in our office for two weeks, which felt like four. My normally pleasant work environment was stressful, and tempers were uncharacteristically short.

My job as a subcontract manager for a company that supports the Department of Defense is to negotiate and award contracts to other companies that partner with us. Because the government wants to ensure its money is spent wisely, procuring functions are subject to audits for regulatory compliance.

I am a girl of details who takes pride in the quality of my work. I do the proverbial dotting of every “i” and crossing of every “t” vital in contract work. My best friend is a twenty-five-page checklist that tells me what is required in various situations as I build my procurement package for approval before issuing any subcontract.

When several of my high-dollar procurements were targeted for review, I was confident they were complete and accurate. That is, until I was asked to go back through them and make sure before we turned them over to the auditors.

I made a lot of mistakes.

Suddenly, I was questioning my qualifications to do my job. Failing an audit can be career ending. Would I get fired over this? Despite my manager’s assurances that all was well, I felt my confidence erode and my worth come into question.

Maybe this seems silly. I am not the only one who had procurement packages reviewed. I am not the only one who made errors. My immediate boss and everyone up the line from me in the approval process missed the errors as well. But this knowledge did not stop the voice I kept hearing, the one that told me I wasn’t good enough.

Not good enough.

Do you ever hear this voice? Join me today over at The Glorious Table as we discover that God is not our auditor.  We have one, but God’s grace overcomes it every time.

Condemnation says we failed. Conviction says we can succeed, and grace give us that opportunity. Click To Tweet