After I wrote my “help me,” article ( and please excuse the pity-party) I got some very kind and insightful responses. It’s a challenge – at least weekly – to keep plugging on amid all the vain, egotistical and the valid questions/issues that present themselves. Oh yeah, vanity my dear sneaky and irritating friend.
BUT where I seem to always end up is looking back and asking, “what if I had not been there?” This is not an ego thing – it’s not about “ME” it’s about having been there to do what He gave me to do. It’s is about availability. When I felt the call to serve my Aunt gave me a Bible and in it she wrote, “The inexhaustible supplies of God are available to the man who is available to the inexhaustible supplies of God.” It’s interesting as I grope my way out of the doldrums to look back on how often I found myself unavailable and how the supplies were either not to be found or more dangerously, not from Him.
In both my “labors” people often tell me, “You’d be a great – this or that,” and I appreciate it. But I know (although vanity makes me forget) that knowing myself better than they do – I really wouldn’t make a great, this or that. I can only be a (great???) me. Oh, I’d be good at many things – but only for a time. History (mine) seems to demonstrate that when I follow another path I, well, get lost easily and quickly only to find myself right back where I was – right where I am.
I know a lot of you have the same struggle. Somehow the thought, I ought to be “X” or I wish I was “X” gets in your head. You make a change and head that way and “BAM,” you find yourself somewhere you don’t want to be doing something you don’t want to do – even if it’s a good place you’re in or a good thing you’re doing, you know it’s not YOUR place or His place for you.
It’s not uncommon to find ourselves wanting better or wanting more, especially when it comes to respect and kudos, recognition yeah, and money. At least I know it’s not for me. But I have to keep banging my head to remember that being faithful in little does not mean you’re supposed to or will get much to be faithful with. I wonder if little isn’t what I’m best at being faithful in and that much would be dangerous.
For those of you I’ve had the wondrous privilege of serving, I want you to know that I would not exchange that opportunity for anything. I appreciate your acknowledging His using me in your lives BUT maybe I need to make it clearer how He has used you in mine and Patti’s. Every opportunity to care for every single sheep has made our lives fuller and more secure.
You see, talking with you about your “stuff” exposed ours. The exposure of our “stuff” leads us to Him. I hope this doesn’t sound bad but the best advice I ever got was advice I gave you. Come on, how many of you have quoted me back to me and shut me up? Had YOU not been there I would never have been in a place, at a time, to deal with a particular issue. He brought me there through YOU! Thank you.
I need, I think, to learn better how to despise the “other master” that messes with my head. I need to learn to not ask, “Why don’t I XXXX?” in terms of ministry and rather ask “Why do I XXX?” I do XXX under his sovereignty. Hello?!?!?!?!?!?
Thank you all for your responses. The smack on the head and the e-hugs were blessings.
So where am I now? Right where I need to be. I want to be part of His inexhaustible resources that are available to those who are available – and in need.
Available – to Him and to His – in the manner He has made me.
I love this quote – and really ought to get it tattooed so I quit forgetting it:
“I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am” ― John Newton
Another –
He drew a circle that shut me out —
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love (GOD) and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.
Thank you all for your insights and encouragements. I know you know we all have those moments (or days or weeks or months) when we question and wonder, “What if?”
I appreciate your being patient with mine!
Michael
Sr. Sheepdog ;-}
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