Originally published Tuesday, 12 April 2016.
I have a lot on my mind this morning as I sit down to share my heart with you. I’ve been away from this space longer than I planned. I’m working furiously on finishing a book that God put on my heart to write, and I can’t wait to place it in your hands. Would you remember me in prayer as I finish this process? I’m so grateful for you!
Writing a book can be lonely work, and there’s so much I want to convey. However, I want more than anything to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit as I place each word on the page. It’s a letter-by-letter process for me full of backspacing, deleting, and hot tears in prayer to Jesus as I work through my own healing in hopes the words, which are helping me to heal, might aid in healing someone else. More than anything, I pray these words will lead others to the Healer of everything.
I’ve learned that God usually calls us to the uncomfortable: tasks that situate us just outside our comfort zone and then requires an act of faith to succeed in following through.
“God does not require that we be successful, only that we be faithful.”
– Mother Teresa
Those words by Mother Teresa work letter-by-letter to string together pure wisdom that leads me straight to the center of a spiritual reality. We have to be willing, obedient, faithful, constant, and committed to the cause of Christ. Success is not measured in the eyes of men, but in the eyes of God. His definition is so much different from ours. He has a plan we cannot see and is using us in ways we cannot imagine. God does a lot of behind the scenes work and our main job is to be willing and faithful in whatever way He plans to use us.
For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.
-The Apostle Paul (Galatians 1:10)
You might not be writing a book, but I have no doubt you are called to work in a capacity much bigger than you can imagine. Right at this moment your gifts are being stirred up so that they are ready to pour out.
No matter where you find yourself today, God will use you in the place you are standing to influence someone else. The kindness of your character and the strength you hold in your situation will speak volumes to those around you. You don’t have to be the world’s definition of successful, you only need to be God’s definition of faithful.
But as it is written:
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him…”
-1 Corinthians 2:9
You are loved and there are amazing tasks waiting that only you can accomplish. Step outside your comfort zone and trust Him in the place you stand today.
For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, 21 to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
-Ephesians 3:14-20
Love,
Jennifer
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