Step Up and Speak Out

2 Timothy 1:7 For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.

Why can we get so fired up about sports (Go Spurs) and become so quiet about the Savior? Why do we so readily share our political views, but hit the mute button when it comes to sharing Jesus? Why do we call all our friends to tell them about a great restaurant we found and don’t make the call to tell them about the Redeemer we know?

Why do we show more passion about the new diet, new golf club, new car, new shoes, new hobby, new vacation spot, new movie, new iPhone app, new whatever…than a relationship with Christ? Why is it easier to talk about anything else…than Jesus?

“For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power…!” If this is true, why do we often feel so wimpy and powerless when it comes to sharing the most important message in time and eternity?

FEAR – that’s why! We are fearful of what others may say or think about us. We are fearful we will look like a fool. We are fearful we don’t measure up as a Christian and they will know. The list goes on….

How do I know this? I lived it, that’s how! I walked in fear and intimidation about sharing my Jesus for years! I knew it, I hurt because of and was ashamed by it. Then one fateful day God showed me how He was going to use pitiful, messed up, beat up, scarred up ME for His purposes. I felt so unworthy of His love much less thinking He could use me. After all…I knew all the bad things I had done, all the harsh words I had spoken, all the times I thought about myself instead of others…yep, I was painfully aware of all that mess. YET…He loved me anyway…that was the beginning of the new me, the acceptance of the fact that He loved me anyway! He had plans for me of which I had no idea. He showed me, that fateful day, how all my scars from wounds, all my pain, all my trials were going to be used for His glory…and I was dumbfounded!

Here’s the key…He was able to show me that day because I took a leap of faith and stepped out in fear asking Him to work through me. I wanted to be bolder about speaking out for Jesus and knew it was a weakness of mine so I had asked a friend if I could tag along one day to ‘see’ what she did in prison ministry. She threw me off the deep end and gave me a small group to lead that day!! I was so scared, my knees knocked, my gut hurt and I never felt more inadequate in my life! I kept telling God I wasn’t as knowledgeable as the other women I was with, I wasn't as ‘studied’ as they were, I wasn’t as holy as they were, and I didn’t have a clue!

Looking into the faces of the women in white uniforms sitting around me that morning, I prayed silently to God as I had never prayed before. As part of the lesson I was to present, I had to share about myself and how God had worked in my life. It was in that sharing I had my ‘light bulb’ moment and understood that God was using all the cr_ p from my life to reach these women! They could identify with me BECAUSE I had gone through all that junk! They actually were open to receiving what I had to say about Jesus because I knew and had experienced their pain.

That day, God showed me that I was to use my life and my spiritual growth to reach others. All these years later, I still do. I am not the most educated Christian you know, nor the most eloquent, nor a deep theologian. I am simply one woman that is willing to share all my warts publicly, in writing, to share my Jesus. I share my truth about my Jesus in the morning…

Be open to something new in your life, ask God to show you how and then hold on!

There IS a Plan

As I write this, I am enthralled by the full moon shining in my office window. The view is glorious! The moon is high enough to silhouette the tall trees on the property behind me. It casts a deep gray glow through the black boughs with the moon itself center stage. Just lovely! There is a vivid point made in this, no matter how darkness may seem to shroud our world at any point in time, there is beauty to be found in God’s creation.

  

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

In her book, Let Me Be a Woman, Elizabeth Elliot records the story of a friend who had great difficulty accepting the looks God had given her. While everyone this girl knew had beautiful golden hair, hers was black. And while they were all still growing, she had stopped. She grew to be only about four feet ten inches tall.

Eventually, she reached the country to which God had called her to be a missionary. One day, she stood on the wharf in Shanghai and looked around at the people to whom He had called her. “Every single one of them” she said, “had black hair. And every one of them had stopped growing when I did.” She was able to look to God and exclaim, “Lord God, You know what You’re doing!”

This story reminds me of a personal experience. When I was a young girl, some of my interests were different than those of my friends. We would be together to play and they loved to cut pictures out of catalogues (Sear & Roebuck’s & Montgomery Ward’s – remember those?) of babies and pretend it was their baby or play with paper dolls. Me, I preferred to cut pictures out of magazines, especially National Geographic, of different countries I wanted to visit and things I wanted to see in each country. I would plan trips while my friends picked out baby furniture in the catalogue. They didn’t understand my fascination with other countries and cultures. I didn’t either, really, I just knew that was the stuff that moved me.

Years later, as a missionary, I could see where God was preparing my heart for the work He called me to while I was but a young school girl. It’s awesome to think back at my life and see how He was shaping me all along for that service while I was just growing into it without a clue. I took the long, hard road many times that strayed off His path but He would turn me back around in spite of myself. It just hit me…tho sometimes my husband finds my tendency to plan an annoying trait, being a focused ‘planner’ was part of His plan! Sorry, Honey, God did it…you’re stuck with it!

We all struggle from time to time with something specific and ask, “Why Lord?” Won’t it be awesome when we finally reach a point we can just roll with the flow confident that God knows what He’s doing! Fortunately for us, He is not intimidated by our questions when we sound like a three-year old with our barrage of “Why…why…why…?" We may not understand it today — but He has known these things from the very beginning. And He really is carrying out His great plan in us! Cheer up! God is preparing His vessels for GREAT things!

Retire? Not a Chance!

Acts 20:24 However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.

Zechariah 2:10 Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion: for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord.

Two inspiration scriptures this morning! I can see with my spiritual eyes a scene of believers ablaze with the Holy Spirit singing, dancing and rejoicing around a camp fire as they commune with the Lord in their midst! It’s a joyful time of fellowship after sharing the message of God’s grace and salvation through Jesus Christ. What better aspiration than fulfilling the task with which we are commissioned? A celebration of divine nature between all that is Holy and the devoted worshipers determined to fulfill the call. Glorious!   

There is so much written on how to get organized, how to set and achieve goals and/or how to get rich and retire financially secure. All great tools for our time on this earth but they pale to nothingness when held up to the light of what is promised when we follow, honor and depend on God. In pushing forward to the goal of spreading the message of Jesus we are laying a foundation of faith that no man or economic downturn can touch. 

Retiring financially secure is becoming less and less attainable here on earth in this day but ‘retiring’ is not a factor in the heavenly realm. We will spend our time in worship and whatever assigned position we are given in God’s Kingdom. My thought is that we will not care about retiring from anything in heaven! The only ‘how to’ book we need is filled with all we need to know to reap the greatest reward of all, an eternity with Christ! 

O God, I want to begin this day You have given to me in worship and dependence on You. Help me keep my eyes on the goal of completing the task You set before me, my ears tuned only to Your voice and my heart in a constant state of worship so that I may reach others in Your name.

Fan the Flames

1 Cor 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

As you may or may not know, we’ve initiated a new phase of ministry here at Truth. It would be more accurate, I suppose, to say we have refocused and returned to walk out the vision the Lord gave us ten years ago for Truth in Love World Ministries. After a hiatus to rear grandchildren, we are gearing back up and fanning the flames of the vision. It simmered far too long.

We served in various capacities in that time, this blog for instance is written and sent out because God laid it on my heart and allows me to use the gift of writing He gave in His service. There are days, times and/or seasons I do not ‘feel’ like getting up and sitting at the computer in the dark before dawn but I do because He has been so faithful to me. Sometimes I’ve felt like I have been nothing more than an ‘observer’ of my own life watching years march by as I waited for the time to reclaim the vision and answer that call. Sometimes it felt like disobedience on my part to sit back giving my time and energies to something else. Sometimes I wallowed around in my justifications to try to make myself feel better about the vision being on the back burner. That rarely made me feel better and it certainly didn’t fool God. I’ve had well meaning friends tell me my distress over not pursuing the vision was misguided because I was serving Him in other ways. Obedience delayed is disobedience…you just can’t ‘pretty’ that up.

Don’t settle for what the Lord has already accomplished through you. Yes, it’s always nice to be reminded of how God has already used you – but never lose sight of what He still wants to do with you in the future, and how He may want to build upon what He has already done in the past.

“Where there is no vision the people perish” [Proverbs 29:18].

Has the Lord given you a vision? Has He given you an assignment to accomplish? Now is the time to lay hold of that vision and continue to fulfill your calling. It may not happen as you planned or expected. Rarely can we even begin to see our puny plans in the shadow of the bigger plans of God. Our finite minds cannot grasp His ‘big picture’. 

In my mind’s eye, I’ve always pictured God’s plan as a massive woven tapestry that plays out the scenes of eternity. We are but a tiny piece of thread in that tapestry. I do not know what color my piece of thread is, much less how it fits in His big picture but I do know that I am in that picture because He chose me to be. If He took the time to create me and determine my place in His plan, who am I to turn my back on any vision He gave me to walk out?

So I encourage you, Friends, to renew your vision of His will for your life, for your future. Turn up the heat of the passion for that vision to a rolling boil. Do not be satisfied with lukewarm past actions or deeds but settle for nothing less than fire for the vision.

Revelations 3:15-16 says: I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

Fan the flames of the vision the Lord laid on you and jump in!