How amazing is God? This amazing!!
He takes arrogant, openly rebellious, messed-up, broken, weird, quirky and imperfect people like me and uses then to accomplish his purposes.
Just recently I was registrar for a men's weekend retreat come convention in a little place about an hours drive from my home.
Being Registrar can be very stressful and seeing as how it was my second time round in the job I went into with my eyes open. I certainly don't mean to generalise but it can be quite humorous working with a bunch of men, so unlike the very organised womanhood I have had the privilege to work with on previous occasions.
With men it is an entirely different situation, I received application forms with no payment - I received payment with no application form and had no idea who it was from - I had guys ringing me promising they would come but couldn't afford the asking price and me doing deals. I had other guys determined to come and then at the last moment pulling out and vice versa with guys turning up who I had no idea was coming at all.
Overall it was just a bit of laugh really and we all got there in the end - with God working miracles at every turn.
Dealing with the convention site was altogether another story - the volunteer person had taken a HUGE dose of rude pills and became a really hard person to deal with. The guys themselves were more than happy to come along but the person involved made my life as registrar a bit miserable to say the least.
That's when my temper tantrums, and feeling of vengeance reared their heads and I found myself fuming and planning all sorts of counter attacks - I found myself taking the same rude pills as my friend at the convention centre yet God worked in my life in spectacular and awesome ways.
The fact that God is able to work despite our flaws doesn't men we should adopt a "no big deal" view of sin.
I was certainly humbled at the weekend when God drew my attention to my behaviour and the could-have-been consequences of my actions. If I had had my way there would have been a 'show-down' of sorts with the booking clerk - pistols at dawn would have been nothing compared to what I had in mind.
But God had other plans for me!
Dragging me into his love and compassion, his patience and long-suffering made me focus more on His power and grace and far less on my own short-comings. temper and calls for vengeance, which were running rampant through my head most of the weekend away.
I don't know about you but I want to be a strong person, able to handle anything, to be a brick and not show any weaknesses at all. But deep down I know it's all an act.
Only God can handle everything. What is more amazing is that when we are really pushing it - our nerves and inner beings cry out for vengeance and when we are really under the gun and we feel we have no resources left, God is there - He is PURE STRENGTH with a HUGE capital "S"
I had to come to a VERY big decision over that weekend - when everything was crying out to me in the midst of my temper tantrum to get back at this person, after all look what they said and did??
A decision that made me take a long hard look at how I was reacting - did I prefer to call my own shots? Was I confident in my own strength? Was I prepared to really hand it over to God?
I'm praising God that I was spared not only the embarrassment of maybe making a scene and ruining the weekend for myself but I could have stopped the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of some of the men attending the weekend.
How about you? Are you letting your temper run away with you?Are you letting your past failures dictate to you on how you are reacting to your present situations?
One of the things I learned the hard way over this weekend was not to let my weakness, bad temper and feeling of vengeance interfere with the work God wanted to do in and through me.
In 2 Corinthians 12: 9 it says "God's power is made perfect in our weakness" something that I learned a lot of over that weekend and something I hope to take on board as I try to keep walking in His footsteps.
Let God replace your weaknesses and inabilities today and with His divine power resolve in your own heart to move powerfully ahead with Jesus by your side. This is a mighty promise to men of faith by God Himself.
Even when we are weak we can be strong in Jesus.
He takes arrogant, openly rebellious, messed-up, broken, weird, quirky and imperfect people like me and uses then to accomplish his purposes.
Just recently I was registrar for a men's weekend retreat come convention in a little place about an hours drive from my home.Being Registrar can be very stressful and seeing as how it was my second time round in the job I went into with my eyes open. I certainly don't mean to generalise but it can be quite humorous working with a bunch of men, so unlike the very organised womanhood I have had the privilege to work with on previous occasions.
With men it is an entirely different situation, I received application forms with no payment - I received payment with no application form and had no idea who it was from - I had guys ringing me promising they would come but couldn't afford the asking price and me doing deals. I had other guys determined to come and then at the last moment pulling out and vice versa with guys turning up who I had no idea was coming at all.
Overall it was just a bit of laugh really and we all got there in the end - with God working miracles at every turn.
Dealing with the convention site was altogether another story - the volunteer person had taken a HUGE dose of rude pills and became a really hard person to deal with. The guys themselves were more than happy to come along but the person involved made my life as registrar a bit miserable to say the least.
That's when my temper tantrums, and feeling of vengeance reared their heads and I found myself fuming and planning all sorts of counter attacks - I found myself taking the same rude pills as my friend at the convention centre yet God worked in my life in spectacular and awesome ways.
The fact that God is able to work despite our flaws doesn't men we should adopt a "no big deal" view of sin.
I was certainly humbled at the weekend when God drew my attention to my behaviour and the could-have-been consequences of my actions. If I had had my way there would have been a 'show-down' of sorts with the booking clerk - pistols at dawn would have been nothing compared to what I had in mind.But God had other plans for me!
Dragging me into his love and compassion, his patience and long-suffering made me focus more on His power and grace and far less on my own short-comings. temper and calls for vengeance, which were running rampant through my head most of the weekend away.
I don't know about you but I want to be a strong person, able to handle anything, to be a brick and not show any weaknesses at all. But deep down I know it's all an act.
Only God can handle everything. What is more amazing is that when we are really pushing it - our nerves and inner beings cry out for vengeance and when we are really under the gun and we feel we have no resources left, God is there - He is PURE STRENGTH with a HUGE capital "S"
I had to come to a VERY big decision over that weekend - when everything was crying out to me in the midst of my temper tantrum to get back at this person, after all look what they said and did??
A decision that made me take a long hard look at how I was reacting - did I prefer to call my own shots? Was I confident in my own strength? Was I prepared to really hand it over to God?
I'm praising God that I was spared not only the embarrassment of maybe making a scene and ruining the weekend for myself but I could have stopped the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of some of the men attending the weekend.
How about you? Are you letting your temper run away with you?Are you letting your past failures dictate to you on how you are reacting to your present situations?
One of the things I learned the hard way over this weekend was not to let my weakness, bad temper and feeling of vengeance interfere with the work God wanted to do in and through me.
In 2 Corinthians 12: 9 it says "God's power is made perfect in our weakness" something that I learned a lot of over that weekend and something I hope to take on board as I try to keep walking in His footsteps.
Let God replace your weaknesses and inabilities today and with His divine power resolve in your own heart to move powerfully ahead with Jesus by your side. This is a mighty promise to men of faith by God Himself.
Even when we are weak we can be strong in Jesus.
Good post Bruce. We can all learn from it and it points out the need for us to ALWAYS ensure we have God engaged (or we are engaged with Him) before we jump in feet first...and make fools of ourselves.
ReplyDeleteWalking in the Spirit is the way. Start with prayer, end with prayer, and say a lot of payers in-between.
God bless & keep on keeping on.
Regards...John
Thanks John - its been a real learning curve for me and hopefully now others
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