In the past few weeks, I finished editing my third book. (Let’s just say that outlines are far more easily applied before the book is written, and that the God of miracles still accomplishes tasks I thought were impossible. But the book was well worth the effort).
I also lost and regained my voice (It’s interesting how whispering restricts all your conversations to face-to-face: no casually calling into the next room, or picking up a phone to ask a question), and lost and regained my health. (The flu, kindly imported from the US by friends, well overstayed its welcome, reducing me to listless days on the couch reading far too much fiction).
Meanwhile, we endured six (6!) days of wind and rain (and sleet and hail and flooding), bringing our winter precipitation to 200% of its normal level. (I began to feel a bit like Noah, minus the animals). Happily, my returning health coincided with the best snowstorm Jerusalem has had in twenty years. There is nothing like snow for making sabras smile.
Coming up in the next few weeks is a new job description that neatly coincides with not just one, but several of my insecurities, and I’ve caught myself in the act of informing God that He has picked the wrong person for the task. Fortunately (?) I am in very good company, with the likes of Moses, who said “Um, God. Remember how I’m not a public speaker?” and Jeremiah who protested, “I’m just a kid.” (What is it about us that we have to remind God of our age? Abraham, Sarah, Solomon, and Zechariah did it. I have too).
But God. Is in the habit of calling things that are not — or nought, for that matter — as though they are.
Here’s the thing: if I’m in a situation where I think I have something to offer, I make far less room for God than the situations where I know perfectly well that I have nothing to offer, and He had better show up, or I’m sunk!
And sunk I am, as long as I am too set on my fears to notice the needs of the folks I’m called to serve. Too panicky to see that God might have joy and glory and fruit to share here.
My heart, like the Grinch’s, is several sizes too small.
Happily, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
I need love? He has love. I need a larger heart? He is large-hearted inside me. I’m swamped by insecurities? I have no vision? Great!
I’m not the woman for the job. And I am perfectly the woman for the job —
As long as I allow Jesus to show up in my heart. Then what I am not makes room for what He is!
Honestly, it’s been a slow, slow process. But as I listen and pray and talk to wise friends, my vision is expanding bit by bit. I’m just beginning to anticipate how God might surprise me, in this dreaded task. And I’m even getting (just a little) excited! Pray my heart continues to grow?
Thank you.
Elisabeth Adams 