a·ble
/’ab?l/
adjective
1. having the power, skill, means or opportunity to do something.
2. having considerable skill, proficiency or intelligence.
According to this dictionary definition, I am not able. I didn’t really need the dictionary to inform me of this, seeing as I’ve been walking with Jesus for about seven years now, & the initial truth that I realized upon meeting Him was that I am fragile & incompetent by nature…but Christ in me is the opposite. He is able.
We say that often, that He is able. We say a lot of things. We write a lot of things on t-shirts & posters, manufacture a lot of ceramic trinkets with verses & manifestos on them…but do we really believe them? Or have they become cliché?
God is good all the time, all the time God is good.
Victory belongs to our God.
The joy of the Lord is my strength.
The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.
I love Jesus.
Jesus loves you.
God is able.
We’ve taken the impact out by using the Word of God flippantly, I believe. By commodifying Christianity. I know I’ve said all of the above statements at some point without conviction, or even without convincement. Just thrown them around, pearls before swine. But in reality these sentences are heavy, saturated, dripping with grace & faithfulness, with love, assurance & sovereignty.
I’ve said the last statement quite a lot, even if I didn’t have the faith to back it up in the moment it came out of my mouth, because it’s comforting to say that God is able when I am so not.
But I don’t know if I really understood the weight of that statement until lately. Because I know that God can do the impossible, but I think sometimes we diminish Him in our heads without even realizing it. Yet in His immense grace, He still shows Himself to us, & He’s shown me recently that He is a perfectly capable God in more ways than one…
He is Able to Save
About a month ago I got a message on Facebook from a wonderful, beautiful friend of mine in Quebec named Marie-Jeanne. I’m going to be honest, before I got this message, I was doubting. Doubting that I am where I’m supposed to be, doubting that I’ve gone where I should have went in the past, doubting that I’m going where I should go in the future, & ultimately doubting that I hear God. I was thinking about the time I spent as a missionary in Quebec in 2013, wondering if any fruit was born of it, & if I actually heard God’s call to go. Dwelling on the past to cultivate doubt…not a good idea. Lol. Then I received the message.
Here’s a little backstory of how Marie-Jeanne & I met: I was in a bar praying, asking the Lord for an opportunity to share the gospel & I felt the Spirit urge me to go up to the bartender, which she was. I sat down on the barstool nervously & asked for some water & then began to talk (if we open our mouth, He will fill it as it says in Psalm 81:10), our conversation quickly turned towards Jesus, even though the music was loud & drowning out our sentences & she was totally French & I’m a ridiculous Anglophone…God works in mysterious ways. Haha. There was no eloquence whatsoever, no clever speech, but I think Jesus did what He wanted to, & the Spirit was there (1 Corinthians 2:4)…because this girl said to me that I was one of the most beautiful people she had seen & there was a Light in me that she couldn’t explain. I couldn’t believe she said that, it was obviously a supernatural thing that she was seeing, I was dumbfounded & humbled & I spent the remainder of the night gleefully & tearfully praising God with my sidekick & friend Grace, just happy to be used by Him.
The message that Marie-Jeanne sent me a month ago, about a year & a half after we met, was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever read in my life. We were chatting, just catching up on life, completely ignoring the “language barrier” & then she said, “Oh and I am a girl of God and its so amazing! You really inspired me :)” “God is really kind and lovefull so thank you for being in my life.”
I…
bawled.
And smiled like a fool, & didn’t know what else to do. It was not by my inspiration that she was saved, but by God’s hand. It was one of the best things I’d ever heard. It wasn’t fancy literature, just beautiful broken English laced with the power & grace of God. Like really, what more could I ask for? He cured my doubts about whether I hear & follow His direction & showed me how utterly CAPABLE He is with one Facebook message. After the blessed night I met Marie-Jeanne I continued praying for her, but always thought I could have done more, I could have connected her with a church, could have you know, ushered her closer to the Lord or something dumb like that, as if I’m helping God get His work done. Haha. I felt like I didn’t do enough & I had to help Jesus save her. So silly. We are not in the business of doing God favors.
My job was done. The seed was planted, & then I just prayed.
It is our privilege to be used for His purposes, He loves us enough to choose & appoint us for great works. But He doesn’t need us, He can move His mighty right hand without our aid. He’s mighty to save.
God is able.
He is Able to Do The Impossible
Within a week of receiving the news of Marie Jeanne’s salvation, my friend Rocio from Mexico also had news for me via Facebook. She had just had a wonderful weekend of ministry, worship & prayer which she was telling me about. Prior to that weekend, she had been praying about her tattoos which she had gotten before she met Jesus. She had been convicted by the Lord & really wanted to get rid of them so she was praying for Him to bring money in for laser removal; to make a way where there seems to be no way. God answers prayers…after the conference she attended, where she didn’t even receive specific prayer about her tattoos, she came home to find blotches of her tattoos missing. Ink gone out of the outlines. Lol. It was so awesome! It filled me with so much joy. The Lord knew the desires of her heart, & that these desires honored Him & He was totally faithful. We pray practically sometimes, but God in His great love for us says, “I will show you my power, I am bigger than your logic, I will do infinitely more than you can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20).” He is just so good & faithful.
God is able.
He is Able to Heal
God showed Himself as Healer to me in the past couple months as well when I got unexpectedly & weirdly sick for about 2 weeks. It wasn’t an ailment I’d ever experienced before. I was extremely fatigued, but also couldn’t sleep past about 8:00 in the morning because I’d wake up SOAKED in sweat everyday. Almost every night that I was sick I would be woken up around 5:00 with a horrible migraine, so I’d get out of bed & have to try sleep sitting up on the couch because the headache was unbearable laying down. I was seriously weak & dazed, with no appetite & just felt like my body was failing me. Eventually my Mom made me go in for blood work & we found out something was really off with my liver function. They ordered another blood test in a week, but no medication since they didn’t know what was wrong with me. I kind of started freaking out, thinking I was dying of Hepatitis (I overreacted), but I was soon soothed by the Holy Spirit. I started to pray, as did my Mom & others & I eventually started functioning semi-normally again, until one night at my Dad’s place when I was sitting in the living room & my vision started going bonkers. There was suddenly a combination of checkerboard patterns, zig-zags, bright blotches of light, & total darkness before my eyes. I was immediately concerned because I had never experienced anything like that before, so I went in the bathroom to calm myself down & not worry my family. I looked in the mirror & that just added to the panic; I could only see parts of my face, I saw my one eye but the other was blacked out & my vision was blurred & doubled. I was surprised at how the Lord helped me keep composure considering how scared I was. I went into a bedroom, shut off all the lights & laid face down on the bed, half praying for the Lord to relieve me, half rebuking whatever was happening in the name of Jesus. And it stopped, as quickly as it had started. Because God is able. My Dad urged me to go to the hospital to get checked out & the doctor told me I had experienced what is called a migraine aura, something I hope to never experience again. He prescribed some medication for migraines, but I told him I “already have prayer”. Lol. Now I totally agree with medicine, but I know the Lord moved me to testify to His faithfulness, because He alone healed me. At my follow-up blood test, my liver function was totally normal! They never figured out what was wrong, but I can’t help but think it was something more spiritual than physical, something that could only be remedied by the Great Physician. All I’m really sure of regarding the whole situation is that I was real sick, & God healed me.
God is able.
He is Able to Answer & Provide
The final example of God’s immense abilities is in an answer to a prayer I prayed myself.
Now, I’m a girl who needs confirmation upon confirmation. As I’ve said before, I felt led to do this Race, but I wanted to make sure it wasn’t my flesh doing the leading.
I’m not really doing this because I want an adventure. Will I marvel at the mountains in Nepal? Yes. Will I faint of cuteness overload when I meet Indian children? Yes. Will I laugh & sing & cry & dance? Probably. And that’s all good, He made this beautiful world for His people to enjoy, but just walking with Jesus is the most mysterious & extravagant adventure of all, I don’t want anything to rise above that adventure.
I’m not really doing this because I want an exciting experience either. Will I experience things that bring me to tears? Yes. Will I be astounded at the poverty & lack I see firsthand? I know I will. Will I be stretched & challenged & surprised living in such a tight-knit community? Of course. I’ll be changed. But walking by the Spirit is the most exciting & mind-blowing experience that you could have, & it will render you speechless countless times. I don’t want this to be an endeavor of self-interest in any hidden way, but rather an act of obedience to the Lord (Psalm 139:24). And so I pray.
And two weeks ago, on a Saturday, I prayed this:
“Lord, if you really want me to go on this missions trip, can you bring $1000 to my door this week? Amen.”
Let it be known that I’m not that girl. I’m not the one being bold with the Lord & laying out fleeces like Gideon all day. I really had to muster up that mustard seed faith to say $1000 instead of $100. Lol. But guess what? On that Monday, two days after I prayed that little big prayer, my Mom walked through the front door & handed me a cheque for $1100.
Say it with me…
GOD IS ABLE!
Hahahaha. I love Him!
“Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church & in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”
Ephesians 3:20 & 21
🙂
