"O my Lord, I am not eloquent" and other faulty reasons for silence.

Has the enemy ever told you something along these lines: “You can’t tell people what God is doing in your life because you aren’t very good at articulating your thoughts. Keep it to yourself. Let the eloquent speakers share; what they have to say is of more value because it sounds prettier coming out of their mouth. That person has letters behind their name, you should just listen. If you want to speak, get some credentials. Until then, you should ignore any inclination you have to speak about your walk with Jesus...I mean, who do you think you are? Are you so proud? Do you really think you’re so 'special' that you have something to ADD to the life of the Church?! God wants you to be humble, that means you be quiet and listen. A teachable person listens and doesn’t speak, you want to be teachable and humble, right? Besides, that thing you were considering sharing, in the whole scheme of things, it’s nothing; why would anyone want to spend time hearing about your little struggles or your little victories or you little life? Head down, mouth shut...that’s want ‘living a quiet and peaceable life’ means.”

If he has, I just want to remind you of one little thing: The enemy is a big, fat liar. Yes, a liar. And not just a slimy, twisting liar, but a being in passionate pursuit of destroying the people of God, stealing the glory of God and hindering the power of God from playing out in the broken world.

I think it is important to get a conversation going, this requires words. For me, because God made me introspective, I am completely uncomfortable when I don't understand how I am doing or where I am at. I confront my emotions and deal with the circumstances of my life because I am unable to stuff things (for better or for worse). Because of my reflective nature, I embrace the invitation to stand before the Father in Christ with boldness and without shame--just as I am--with great joy. I process through my emotions and pains and confusions and questions in the presence of the Lord and the Truth of His word. I know who I am before the Creator God who defines me. That means, if I can boldly stand without shame before God, I can express the things I am struggling with and learning about with boldness and without shame before people. And I have found that the more I see and understand about what God is doing in me and around me, the less I can hold it in. But the more I share it, the more I hear the reasons why many around me AREN’T sharing. They are silently living their lives with Jesus because they "aren’t very eloquent of speech," the things they’re learning "are just too insignificant," they "aren’t qualified" to have a voice in people’s lives, etc. etc. (I can understand believing all of these things, I’ve been silent because of them far too many times myself.) So I find that while many people will listen to my life and my revelations and my struggles and my victories, they hold back from sharing with me their own.

But what is unfortunate about this one-sided conversation (other than the fact that I desperately want to hear from them), is that I firmly believe that the act of articulating your thoughts and the work God is doing in you is a wonderful way of observing them fully and allowing them to solidify in your heart and mind. I honestly think it’s a vital step in completing the process of the work God does in each of us: Put it in words--eloquent or ineloquent is not the point--and share it.

I would encourage each of you to line up your excuses (such as the ones listed above) and shoot them down with Truth. Here is an example:

LIE: I’m not good at articulating myself.
TRUTH: In the book of Exodus, God told Moses He was going to use him to free His people from slavery, the largest exodus of all time. Upon hearing this, barefoot in the presence of a holy God, Moses presented Him with lots of reasons why he wasn’t the right man for the job; after all, he wasn’t just ineloquent, he was slow of speech and tongue. Was God’s hand shortened because of Moses’ deficits? Absolutely not. God took what Moses DID have (ie a simple staff and an ineloquent, slow tongue) and freed 600,000 male slaves (if you add the women and children, the number could have been around ~2,400,000).

Because here is the truth: The work of God in our lives belongs to Him. His work in us points to Him, magnifies Him, glorifies Him, and reflects Him. It is not self-exalting to share it because ultimately, it isn’t about us; it’s about Jesus. And the power of our testimony doesn’t lie in the eloquence of our words, it lies in Jesus. So we can offer up the words we do have--jumbled or stumbled or stuttered doesn’t matter--they are filled with potential because they are backed by pure, edifying power of our magnificent God.

All this was really just a very long way of exhorting you to fight your excuses! Put the enemy in his place, why should he get to dictate what comes out of our mouths and what stays in? Let's let the Lord direct our tongues. Can you imagine how much potential there is for growth and for an offering of praise and glory to the Lord if we would boldly testify to one another and invite each other into the inter workings of our daily walk with Him?! Jesus said, “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” If the work of God in your heart DOESN’T overflow out of your mouth, then I would encourage you to ponder it until it does.

And then tell me about it. :)

Passionate ranting and sobering questions

We ran into a wonderful, godly man the other day. We had a moment to catch up, and he and my husband shared with each other some of the devastated lives they encountered in their work and ministry. As we unwound these broken situations, we looked behind the actions and considered where the cracks in their lives started; the young addict whose mother had shown him how to shoot up heroin, the 27-year-old man who was shown pornography as a 6-year-old boy on the playground at school, the suicidal young woman whose father walked out many years before...

As we spoke, questions arose. Questions like:
“Is there even hope to restore a life so broken?”
“Can someone emotionally and mentally come back from a place like that when they’ve never been equipped with the tools to cope?”
“Even if they’re freed from their addiction, could they live a normal life?”

To which I, perhaps annoyingly (at first), answered, “But we get to bring Jesus!”

We get to bring Jesus! The hope for a life broken beyond human repair; the hope for someone ill-equipped during their developmental years to live a purposeful life; the hope for redeeming the lost innocence of a child...that hope it Jesus. After my 3rd or 4th, “But Jesus,” we started to talk about Jesus. We talked about the power of Jesus to free; and not just to free, but to restore; and not just to restore, but to build up to bring freedom and restoration to others. Because Jesus’ healing power is thorough and amazingly beautiful to behold. We talked about how we don’t have to know the answer to details of the brokenness, we just need to love with the persevering, steadfast, redeeming love of Jesus poured out; how that love redeems the lives of the ones it lands on. We talked about how watching this process is “the greater thing” that Jesus told us we will see (He raised the dead, there’s no way you can get a bigger physical miracle than that), He was talking about us bringing His healing, redemptive, life-transforming love on the cross to a broken world and watching its power land upon needy souls bringing pure beauty from the ashes of the aftermath of sin.

Because THAT is what we bring when we answer the brokenness of the world with a relationship with Jesus. Scripture says we are “Ambassadors of Hope.” That fact should make our hearts leap; it should cause our feet to run into the darkness because the Light we carry has the power not just to dispel it...but to heal all that has been broken there.

Jesus is beautiful and He is enough!

And at the end of our conversation, the man was brimming with encouragement and he asked me,
“Have you told anyone this?”

And I can’t shake this question...”Have you told anyone this?” 

I can’t shake it because he wasn’t asking me if I had told the lost, the bound, the weary in the broken world, he was asking me if I had told the Church.

I can’t shake this question. I can’t shake it, not because I don’t tell anyone who will listen to my passionate rants, but because my answer is simple. It is simple, yet so sobering I tear up every time it comes to mind:
“I thought they knew.”