I’ve been super confident about World Race…to my family, my friends, but on the inside I am terrified. Not about going but questioning how will I raise this much money in such a short amount of time? Am I, Candace Blair, good enough? Am I worthy enough? I think of my past and even the mess I give to God sometimes now. This is the real, raw, truth of what is in my heart and my thought process. I am not good enough. I cannot go. I do NOT deserve an opportunity to serve like this. I cannot raise the money. DOUBT. Doubting myself, doubting supporters, doubting the race, but most of all aren’t I really doubting God…After all haven’t I felt this call on my life for a long time..yes, but maybe I’m just not quite good enough, just not quite “there” or “ready” to do this. Last night I cried myself to sleep thinking these things…thinking God are you sure you want ME to do this?
The words to the song Oceans, by Hillsong has always spoken to me and I have even challenged others to take the lyrics literally and to “trust God without borders.” But here I was doing just the opposite…putting God in a box. This morning in church as Pastor Jeff began speaking I knew this was going to be one of those sermons where God gave me the assurance and revealed His love to me even more than He already has in my life. The sermon was on Doubt, which is a series we’ve been covering in the book of Matthew and every word Jeff said struck a chord in my heart. Jeff told us how to deal with different doubts. The first point was Does God love me? This is something I have always struggled with, asking myself if I am good enough for God, but it isn’t about me. I have done nothing nor could I ever do anything to make God love me more or less. That is real love. Love we cannot understand. We are His chosen ones. He loves us more than we could ever imagine and today as I heard Jeff giving this message I was reassured of just how much my God loves me and just how much He loves you. Just how much He loves the people in the 11 countries that I will be ministering to. Just how much He loves the billions of people that walk this Earth..some knowing Him, some walking into darkness, searching for something, a glimpse of anything to give them hope, searching for Jesus, but not even knowing that it is HE who they need. and yet here I am wondering if God wants to use me. Of course He does…I don’t need to be perfect, or have it all together…which is a good thing because I come with a lot of garbage and baggage, but thank God that He loved us enough to send His son so that I do not have to have it all together. So that I can come to Him broken and weak, yet strong in Christ who sees past my imperfections and loves me just as I am. In this I and you can go and share this love with others who are broken and in need of a Savior. I realize more and more each day how much I need my Savior and how grateful I am that I can call Him mine and I am His.
So yes there is still apprehension about how I will raise this large sum of money…but my God is so much bigger than all of that. I pray for you friend, reading this…maybe you feel as if the waters are so high that God does not love you, or that God cannot use you, but let me tell you He loves you more than you will ever understand and He wants more than anything for you to TRUST HIM WITHOUT BORDERS and let Him use you. So as Pastor Jeff said this morning When we look in the mirror, when we look at our past we might ask, Can God use me? And it’s okay to wrestle with this, but we cannot let it rob us from being used by God. So I pray that today you would let God use you and that you would surrender your doubts and fears about whatever you are afraid of and allow the creator of the world to use you and be renewed by the absolutely,unconditional love that He has for you.
