Hoping to Shrug

Though it seems like I've been here for ages already, it has only been nine days. Time flies when you are having fun, and it's been a blast being here and serving with Josiah and Lauren. We laugh a lot--my English friends would say "we get on like a house on fire." Or something like that.

Since my last post, I've been waist-deep in ministry preparing for Holiday Club (English VBS) as well as various talks and messages. Just last night, I taught the weekly Bible Study on the suffering of God. Tonight we taught little ones about the temptation of Jesus and how memorizing Scripture can help us learn to do right and please God. This weekend, I will be giving a message at a nearby church--Kew Church, in Southport--as a guest speaker in their evening service.

It's been a full week. A week in which I realize my deep need for Christ to control my life and be my center, a week I realize that it is how absolutely necessary it is for me to abide in Him. This is because I have, of myself, nothing to offer these people whom I dearly love.

I do not have Words of Life--I have only halted speech.

I do not dispense the Water of Life--the water I keep is that which does not truly quench thirst.

Indeed, I do not have much to say. And when I do speak, I most often mis-speak, saying something I wish I had not, something false, something wrong.

It is by the sheer, overwhelming grace of God that what I have to say is of any benefit to others. It is the scandalous folly of the Gospel which unleashes the Holy Spirit's power through such a vessel as I. It is because of God's bounty and riches that I have even been permitted to open my mouth to His people.

And I am humbled. I have developed already a clear sense of the fact that I am not needed, but God chooses to use me so that His power can be wondrously demonstrated, first and foremost to me. It is God's gift to me--prone to pride and a high estimation of my abilities--that the parts of my ministry that have had the greatest effect on people were parts that I did not intend or seek to do. It is God's gift to me that I can look back on my ministry and shrug, not seeing how what I did had any affect on people, but seeing that God has used me in some way to advance the Gospel.

My hope for this summer is that I will walk away and shrug, unable to say that what I did affected people. I want to shrug and say, I don't know why that person was so greatly encouraged--it must have been Christ. This is why I must abide with constancy and steadfastness, fighting to remain in His presence.

And the funny thing is, He gives me the strength to stay with Him in the first place. After all, it is He who holds my right hand, not the other way around.

"If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That's to prevent anyone from confusing God's incomparable power with us."

--2 Corinthians 4:7 (MSG)