When I finished my first sermon at Lakewood, I knew I wanted to spend my life delivering God’s good news. I knew God had prepared me for it one prayer group meeting and marriage class at a time.
Isn’t it amazing how God desires to use us even when we don’t feel qualified? Even after we’ve been distracted by negative self-talk, or a lack of vision, following our own ways instead of God’s ways, jealousies or other things? What if I would have listened to my own disqualifications for leading that first prayer group instead of the needs of others?
God tells us to comfort those with the comfort we’ve received. I’m so glad I listened to him instead of myself.
You can do the same.
My dad used to frequently recite an Edwin Markham poem: “Great it is to dream when you stand in youth by the starry stream. But a greater thing is to fight life through and say at the end, the dream is true.”
I see the richness of that idea now. God has more in mind for us than the things that distract us in our youth or pain or discouragement. He lovingly grows and prepares us and brings us to the place where we can do what only we were designed to do in this world. The very things pressing on you now may be the very things he’s leading you into blazing a trail for. You may be disqualifying yourself, but that is just a distraction.
Keep your eyes on him and he will show you the way. When you look back, you will see how God was leading you to make not only your dream, but his, come true.
Excerpt from You Are Made For More!
