You know what I realized today? I have a hard time letting God be God in my life and I get in His way all the time. Yesterday, I was reading the New Testament, 1 Peter, to be exact, and there was a verse that mentioned spiritual gifts. Like my mind always does, it began to wander and ask God, “What are my spiritual gifts and what am I supposed to be doing with them?”
I’m sure like many of you, my life consists of a lot of doing. I’m constantly doing or feeling like I need to be doing something. I can’t even read the bible without seeing all the things the apostles did for Jesus and inserting myself into the equation. “Okay Lord, what am I supposed to be doing? What are my spiritual gifts?” I ask these questions instead of just focusing on allowing God to work through me, exactly where I am, using exactly what I already have. I seem to fall into this trap of thinking that I am missing something.
Throughout the bible, God ALWAYS worked through His people right where they were, using exactly what they had. How else was David able to kill Goliath with a slingshot? Stories like this put my lack of faith on full display because I would have waited on God to send me an AK-47 to slay Goliath. I can hear myself now:
“Lord, the Philistines are threatening to capture our people and take them into slavery. I know in my heart that you’ve made me a mighty warrior with my sling and stone. You’ve proven it several times, but I think I’mma need a gun for this one. So I’m gonna sit here and wait for you to send me the gun!”
THIS is how I get in my own way. I claim to have faith for things or for certain outcomes but I will sit around and wait for what I think my circumstances should look like before I move. THEN, when nothing happens at all, I’m looking at God like, “Why didn’t you help me? Why didn’t you do this for me?” But the reality is, I’M THE ONE who didn’t move! I never took one single step in the direction I wanted to go.
It’s like asking someone to meet me somewhere. They show up to the meeting place and they’re waiting for me but I never show up. That’s how I’ve been in a lot of the things I’ve sought God for, not even realizing it. And why have I done this? Again, because I didn’t think I had whatever it was I needed to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish. I didn’t think I could use what I already had. I felt that I needed more.
Another one of my favorite stories in the bible that illustrates God working through us and using what we already have comes from 2 Kings 4. It’s a story about a widow whose husband died owing debts, and to pay off those debts, the creditors were coming to take her two sons into slavery. In a desperate attempt to save her sons, the woman turned to the prophet Elisha for help because she felt helpless.
When she told Elisha her situation, he asked her what she had in her house and she responded, “Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.” Elisha then told the woman to go to all of her neighbors and ask them to borrow “empty vessels”, aka, jars. He told her not to borrow a few and to get as many as she could, which is what the woman did. He then instructed her to go back to her home and begin to pour the oil she had in her house into all the vessels, which she did, and the oil didn’t stop flowing until the woman ran out of jars. By the time she was finished, she had enough not only to pay the debt to the creditors but also enough to live on.
Now, if this were me, I would have messed this blessing ALL the way up! I know myself. I would have either been too proud to go borrow jars from my neighbors, or even worse, I would have overlooked the value of the oil and neglected to mention it. Or maybe I would have operated from a state of lack and neglected to mention the oil out of fear it would be taken away from me. God can’t do anything with all of those obstacles I just put in the way! I mean, He could. He can do anything, but He’s not going to do anything in my life or yours that we are fighting against. There’s no faith in any of that.
As I write this, I have to ask myself, how many times have I not shown up because I lacked the ability to have faith and trust that God is already waiting for me where I asked Him to meet me? Not only that, but He’s already given me everything I need to do what I’m supposed to do! I don’t know about you, but I had an epiphany that when I move this way, I don’t really trust God. I only trust myself.
Here’s my overall point, well, I have a couple, so bear with me:
- God’s ultimate purpose for our lives is the same for everyone: To glorify Him in this earth through everything we do: how we walk(figuratively, not literally), talk, live, treat others, etc. How each of us accomplishes this looks different for everyone, but that’s His ultimate purpose for our existence. The beautiful thing about that is, He has given us everything we need to accomplish His purpose for our lives. The way we move on what we already have determines whether or not He increases or decreases that (aka, the entire purpose of the parable of the talents).
- Sometimes, God gives us dreams way bigger than anything we can accomplish on our own. He very seldom gives us tiny dreams. If He did, we would be able to take all the credit for accomplishing them. So if you’re only operating within the boundaries of what you know you can accomplish alone, you’re thinking too small and God’s not in the business of small thinking.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go take my own advice and re-structure my goals because they were originally written from the perspective of what I know I can accomplish in my own strength. What about you? Do your goals need restructuring too?
A Girl's Guide To God 