Sufficient through God

Your job at any given moment is to bring all your gifts, all your talents, all your propensities, and all your passions into this thing called life and believe that they are good enough to produce the fruit that is expected of you. 

This is a quote from a book I am currently reading titled The Resolution for Women, written by Priscilla Shirer. I re-read this sentence several times trying to grasp all that it is saying. This particular sentence is really speaking to me in this season of my life. No matter what situation I am in, I am to give everything I have in order to produce fruit. Not just any fruit, but the good kind, the kind you look forward to sinking your teeth in as you see it sitting on the counter top. God expects me to use the talents and passions I have for him. After all, he is the one that instilled them in me. He is the one that made me to be the person I am. I may not like a lot of who I am today, but it is my job to use what he has given me for his glory and to figure out ways to do that. 

In this book, I have something underlined or a comment written beside it in almost every paragraph. So much of it feels as if it is written directly to me, as if the dedication page reads my name. Another part I feel that is written not only for me, but all women is the statement below.

Rather than seeking to impress and outperform others, and rather than feeling ashamed by what you don’t have and can’t do, relish the opportunity to stand as a living, walking, eating, breathing example of what God’s grace can do with a woman. He has set apart, weaknesses and all, to be a scared vessel to His service.

If we could just focus on what we are supposed to be doing and how we can fulfill God’s will, and stop worrying about how much prettier, smarter, wealthier, and more put together all the other women around us are, we could probably get twice as much accomplished. This is something I am really working on. It’s hard, seeing other women my age buying houses, succeeding in their careers, growing their family, and all their other accomplishments. It’s hard to not get jealous, but I’m working on it. Yes, I know that we will have children someday (one way or another) and I am content to not have children at this moment and that God will bless us financially. And I am actually content with the job that I have right now, I do feel it is where God wants me. I know that God does have his reasons, but it’s still a working progress. 

Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God.

 2 Corinthians 3:5

I am sufficient only through God, and without him I am not.

Below Ground Encouragment

Tonight was a great night of fellowship. Although we were missing several people for many reasons, we still had our church service in the basement of our pastor’s home. It was a little different tonight in the fact that we had more of a Bible study with discussion rather than a sermon from our pastor. It was a nice change of pace. One thing we talked about was what the church is to some people compared to others. So many people define the progress of a church by its appearance and the number of people attending. What I have been learning lately is that is not true. When we say “the church” we should be speaking of “the body”, “the people.” The church is so much more than a building. 

Some go to” church” as part of a religious ritual, but it should be so much more than that. We spoke about the importance of gathering together and why we should. Hebrews 10:24-25 states, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” We are meant to be together. Yes, we are also meant to worship our God in our homes alone, spending intimate time with God, but we are also to surround ourselves with other Christians. There we can be lifted up when we feel discouraged, there we can learn more about the Bible with more than just one person’s thoughts and there we can open our hearts and share what’s going on in our lives. The church should be a second family. It shouldn’t be something you feel you have to do to please others. 

If you don’t know, Joel and I have been serving at a church plant called The Way. We don’t yet have a building other than our pastor’s basement. Tonight, we also discussed how some people have said to us that they would come to our church “once there is a building” and “once we have a meeting place.” Our pastor’s wife said it well: “The church is not a building, it’s the body and the body is the people. We’re starting with the people, not the building. 

There has been a video going around Facebook for a couple weeks now from a guy who wrote a poem about why he hates religion but loves Jesus. Many people took this message in a way he didn’t intend for it to go. Many people think that religion=church, but that is not the case. He even stated in his message that he “loves the church” and I believe he meant the body, rather than a specific building. We need to learn to separate religion and church, the true church that the bible talks about, not the one that man has made it into.

In case you didn’t know: what is the Body? When I talked about the body in this post, I am speaking of the people who make up the church. We are the body in that we are all to serve a different purpose to fulfill the true meaning of the church. Romans 12:4-6a For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.  Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them.