Dear blog readers, I usually have a dozen blog posts ready to go “live” online. After preparing them, some just sit in WordPress, waiting until the time is right for me to post them. This blog post is over 18 months old but I think it may encourage one of you, today. And don’t worry – my sweet boy is feeling just fine now. And I am good, too!
I put on my walking shoes on a cool fall morning. God and I needed to have a talk because I was feeling like a hot mess. I had believed God for fourteen years for healing for my child’s chronic illness and he was sick again. To say that I was undone by this turn of events was an understatement. At first I was really scared. And then I was very angry. And after a few weeks of walking through spider webs, I just felt numb.
I will be honest, girls. Seeing the symptoms of this illness revisited again upon my child had shattered my faith. I didn’t know any longer if God was interested in healing. I wasn’t not convinced that He is a “Good Good Father” like everyone was singing. And truthfully, I wasn’t not even sure if He still loved me. That was pretty far for this Bible teacher to fall.
I could just take my free salvation ticket and walk away. But the problem was that I was in ministry. Ministry is an indelible part of who I am. I mentor. I listen. I have been a ladies ministry leader and now I travel and speak to women. I’ve followed hard after Jesus for the past 25 years. But I was fresh out of faith, belief, and trust. I had a serious problem.
As I laid out my case before God, we began discussing what I had to offer. I couldn’t really offer women God’s promises for their problems because I was struggling to believe them myself. I couldn’t go into spiritual warfare for women because I was getting my butt kicked by the devil. And I couldn’t offer women much hope because my own hope was temporarily out of stock.
So I asked, “God, what can I offer You and Your kingdom? Am I of any use to You, or should I just be discarded, shoved off to the wayside and forgotten?”
Then Holy Spirit quietly spoke this truth into my aching heart: I may have lost my faith, truth, belief and hope, but I still had something to offer God. Something that no one else could give Him: Myself.
I could give Him me. So as I continued my prayer walk beside the flowers and the butterflies, I surrendered to God my will. “Not my will, God, but Yours be done.” Then I gave Him my heart, because He is searching “to and fro for hearts that are fully committed to Him.” Then I gave Him my love, because He wants us to love Him with “all our hearts, minds, soul and strength.” I offered up to Him my life, because “my life is not my own, it was bought with a price.”
I was not much use to God in that moment, but I was still His. I could give Him me. No one else could give Him that.
You may feel like I did in that moment – like you don’t have much to offer. You may see your friends being successful in their corporate jobs while you struggle to make ends meet. You may know mothers that seem to handle a houseful of children when you can’t handle one very well. You may have friends with model marriages when yours is in shambles. Your friends may be in full time ministry while you struggle to read your Bible every once in a while.
Like me, you may be in a season where you are running low on what seems to matter to God. But when your hands feel empty before God, give Him yourself.
It’s enough.
Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Psalms 73:25-26
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