Do you know that feeling that you’re not doing what you should be and that the Lord is going to move you into a more active role if you will just trust and obey? I’ve had that feeling for a while now, knowing that I haven’t been doing all that I could be doing or should be doing and that God really would like me to do more, to engage in life more willingly. It’s not that I don’t love life and don’t want to be engaged, but I tend to prefer being alone, just doing whatever comes along that sounds the most fun and the least committed. Just writing it sounds bad and probably gives the wrong impression. My worship school teacher said it this way – “There are people who are architects, they like to lay things out and put things into the hands of people who can make it happen. Then there are the builders, they take what the architects drew and bring it to life. Then there are the people who take what the builders built and make it into something great – they use it on a daily basis, they are the ones that turn it into all that the architect envisioned.” That’s not exactly right but he went on to talk about people who are project driven, they see something that needs to be done, get excited about it, do all the work it takes to get it going and that’s where their motivation stops. They want to go on to the next new thing and turn the day to day operations of their creation over to someone else, someone who likes the monotony of doing the same thing over and over. I’m that kind of person. I am primarily project driven and really thrive in an environment where I have a deadline and big goals that seem impossible and I have to just put myself out there. I don’t function that way for myself but for others it is where I am at my best. Give me the biggest administrative mess and a deadline for getting it straightened out and a free hand at doing it and I’ll give you one of the smoothest running administrative offices around. Ask me to stick around and make it run and I’ll do it for a while, but if there isn’t something new coming down the pike to challenge me and engage me then I get bored and dissatisfied.
God has showed me very clearly that He wants me to use my writing for His glory. I have written songs, stories, childrens books, poems and articles but once I write them I set them aside and don’t pursue anything further. I know that is not His plan but finding out the details of how to do the next step has been something I’ve been avoiding. A little while ago, just today, I felt Him saying “I want you to write something everyday.” He is faithful to give me ideas and I love to write. It’s one of my passions. So why don’t I approach the rest of it the way I should? Am I lazy? Maybe. Not really though. I get up at 4 in the morning and go until 8 or 9 every night. I’m not lazy. I love being active and doing but there is inside of me a fear of success, a fear of not being in control of what happens next, a fear of the little details that I would have to track to pursue publication and all that goes with it and yet, deeper down is the dream to get the words that God has given me out there. To let the songs be heard and sung. To let the poems and stories bring a new generation to a deeper devotion to Christ.
God gives us all so many gifts but I realize that a lot of people look at their lives and don’t think God has given them much of anything. I’ve heard mothers say, “what can I do for God all I know is being a good wife and mother?” And I tell them, “Being a good wife and mother is a gift.” They don’t see it that way. They look at their lives as simple and mundane and not changing the world – but one child raised by a good mother, who loves them and shares God with them is a gift to the world, the gift of an artist who saw fit to follow the Lord in how she raised her child. It takes great faith to be a mother! The same is true of being a good wife. A good wife is a sanctuary to her husband, a minister to him and by being a minister to her husband, she is ministering to God and God does not take that lightly.
So often we limit God’s ability in and through us. We see great potential in others, which is great, but when we look at ourselves we shake our heads and wonder what God could ever see in us. Throughout the Bible God asked people to use just what they had in their hands. He asked Moses to use his staff. He used a shepherds sling and stone to bring down a giant. He used the same shepherd’s pen to comfort His nation and teach them to worship and praise the Lord. He asked the widow of Zeraphath to feed Elijah. He used a little boys lunch to feed thousands. He used the hands of Jesus to heal the sick, open blind eyes, raise the dead and show His great love to a lost and dying world. He used Peter’s fishing pole to pay taxes. Ordinary people, with ordinary things in their hands who were willing to trust Him and obey. God turned the ordinary into the extraordinary and changed lives, built nations, saved the world.
For me, I know God is say: “Anysia, what is in your hands?” And I know what is there. I believe He is asking the same thing of all His people, not – go out and find something you don’t already have but, “Child, what is in your hands?”
