Category: instrument of God

You Have Something Unique to Offer the World

You Have Something Unique to Offer the World

It is true. You have something unique to offer the world.

In case today or this week or this month or this year led you to believe otherwise, remember that you have God-given gifts that the Lord desires to use. And even if you aren’t using those gifts to the utmost degree, the Lord still has a profound love for you. On those days when you cannot even recall what your gifts are, remember that your very existence is a gift and that regardless what you do, the Lord is ridiculously in love with you.

If the gifts that others possess tends to make you feel less gifted, shift your perspective. Thank the Lord that He gave those particular gifts to someone and that they are able to use them to shape hearts and minds. Then re-offer yourself to His service, permitting your heart to be a vessel for His transforming love and mercy.

Where you are is not accidental and Christ can use all for His good and perfect will. Trust the process.

God can use you…..yes, despite that quality or tendancy

Reading the Bible is a source of encouragement.

Really.  And I don’t necessarily mean huge spiritual insights and an experience of the infinite.  Yes, that can occur and it is wonderful if it does.

What I mean is this: Scripture paints pictures of people with really big flaws…and then shows us how God uses them.  I am more and more convinced that if God can use Abraham, Jacob, and Adam, then He can use me.  These men all had their strong points but they also had a sizable amount of flaws.

Today we continued to read through Genesis and sometimes I almost laugh when I think of these stories.  Jacob tricks Isaac to get the blessing designated for the first born.  Rebekah helps Jacob escape the murderous rage of Esau.  Jacob goes to his uncle Laban’s and falls in love with Rachel.  The seven years spent working for the privilege to marry Rachel pass in a flash.  Jacob is secretly wed to Leah.  Jacob, upset with the trickery, works another seven years for the chance to marry Rachel.  God sees that Rachel is loved but Leah is not and so He blesses Leah’s womb.  Rachel remains barren.  The sisters start to fight, giving their maids to Jacob so they may have children through them.  Then Jacob’s children fight because he has a favorite.  The favorite ends up being taken and sold to passers-by and Jacob mourns him for dead.  No worries, though, because Joseph can interpret dreams and is, after a couple missteps, second in command in Egypt.  Then he saves the Egyptians and his entire family from starvation.  After toying with them for a bit, Joseph forgives his brothers and they all live happily ever after….until a pharaoh decides to impose infanticide on the numerous Israelites.

Jacob definitely wasn’t perfect.  God blessed him and God punished him.  As one reads the story, it is almost impossible to not think of all of the difficulties they are creating for themselves.  Two wives?  And sisters?  Of course there will be discord!  Then a battle with childbearing?

The squabbles are almost laughable until you remember how you battle over such inanities as doing the dishes or taking out the trash.

Yes, if the Lord can bring about a Redeemer through the bumbling ways of Christ’s fore-bearers, then He can most certainly use you to do His will.

Never fear, we serve a God who can write straight with our crooked lines.