Be The Few

What if I don’t have what it takes?

I see myself standing at the bottom of the giant mountain today. I feel small, unnoticed, not capable and unworthy.

My heart is filled with passion -yet here I sit… wondering,

Will I really be able to do this?

Something inside me whispers, “You can do it… but it will be up to you if you do.”

Obedience. Discipline. Trust. Movement.

These are the words prompting my soul each day.

But then, I fail. Disobeying. Staying busy doing things that don’t matter. Not trusting. Wrong movement.

What am I doing wrong?

I feel like I’ve always had a harder struggle than most people. Even as a little girl, things were always hard for me. In fact, I had to complete Kindergarten… twice.  You can laugh, I have to. [smile] 

It’s always been harder for me to accomplish things. Not a learning disability type struggle, but I feel like I have a deeper struggle with weakness than most people.

My tennis coach in high school noticed it too, “Chevalier [my maiden name], you are just gonna have to work harder than any of these other girls if you want to win a match!”

And so I spent hours and hours on the tennis courts, only to win one match that entire season.

Nothing has ever seemed to come easily for me.

Some people seem to just be good at life naturally.  They make small efforts that go a long ways. Success seems to follow them wherever they go.

I have people like this in my life, they are great people too! And I realize, each of us has our own struggles.

But one of my greatest fears is because of my abundance of weakness; I will never accomplish my God-given dreams.

Always deeply struggling to keep up. Hours of writing. Hours of message prep. Hours of thinking. I spend more time preparing to do the things God has called me to do, than actually DOING the things.

And so… the tasks that often lay before me make me feel like I can never be successful at anything.

God, am I the only one who struggles with an abnormal-lifetime-sense of weakness?

I’m thinking according to Matthew 9:37, maybe I’m not.

There is a reason why God tells us the workers are few.

I believe He knew so many of us would struggle through weakness, defeat and failure. And perhaps there are only a few that will press through all the way.

I desperately want to be one of the few.

I don’t want a life filled with regrets. Not trying hard enough. Or quitting to soon.

And so, I know the only way to really fulfill this calling from God is to work hard in my own field. I need to plant seeds to cultivate the gifts He has given me.

In order to be the few, we need a faith that may look foolish to the world, but looks just right in God’s eyes.

This is my hope today:

That through Jesus, we will be able to build an unshakable faith.

In knowing how my flesh has a natural weakness prone to failure, I have to daily build my faith.

For me, this means listening to a sermon almost every day. I have worship music constantly flowing through my soul. It means blocking people on facebook, twitter and in real life who don’t fill me with good things.

I used to feel bad about this, but lately, I’ve seen that this isn’t about being buddy-buddy with everyone.

The call of God on our lives is serious. We have to do what we have to do to keep our faith growing.  And if we struggle with an abnormal amount of weakness, we may have to over-protect our souls.

What we put in is what comes out.

My friend, maybe this isn’t your struggle, maybe it is. But today I hope each of us will take strides to push through our own struggles to become the few.

May we push through harder than ever today…

What do you think is a practical step we can take to push through weakness in life? I’d love for you to leave a comment and share with this community and me. I value your wisdom and input.