Struggle.
When you think you can do the race. No, when you think you can do the race on your own strength. I’ll tell you now your not going to last. Your not going to get far before you crash and burn out. A lot of the time, we tell ourselves we can figure it out, we can make it through. What if God doesn’t want you to only, “make it through?” What if He wants you to walk through with confidence not on your own power but on His? These past few days the Lord has reminded me of the importance of why He’s brought me here. This being the second time doing the world race, He hasn’t given me a card to pass on growth and on leaning on His strength. I haven’t mastered being this perfect person nor do I hold all the answers. I can’t lean on my own understanding and call it, “good”. It takes a choice every morning to wake up and choose to trust in the Lord to provide the strength I need to walk out the day with everything I need. He has well equipped me to lead, not because of anything I’ve done other than praying and ask for more of Him. It’s a daily decision to choose His strength over my own. Still days I find myself striving to do things on my own.
I’m reminded that doing things on my own I WILL fail. He wants us to constantly be in communion with Him. God didn’t create us to be alone. He wants us to take His yoke and to cast our cares onto Him (Matthew 11:28-30). I realized in mid conversation with a teammate last night as they asking advice on something. I stood there and tried to come up with a solution.
The Lord didn’t bring me to the Dominican to figure others problems out on my own. He did not choose me to lead others because I know the solution to each problem that arises. The Lord has given me, as well as each Christian out there, a perfect helper. It’s called the Holy Spirit. (John 16:13), (1 Corinthians 12). Praise the Lamb for sending this gift/helper to us. He is still alive and well in us. For it says in John 14:17-19, “even the Spirit of truth, whom the world Cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with in you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live”. He has brought me to this place to of leadership, so that I may solely rely on his strength alone. He hasn’t qualified me because of my amazing ability to give good answers. He has qualified me because He called and I answered. “He doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called”. The Lord doesn’t always ask the person who is good at preaching to preach. He might call you to preach even though the person next to you is great at it. He wants to be glorified through everything. Not saying the preacher next to You won’t glorify Him. But you can even more so because it doesn’t come naturally to you. You’ll have to lean on His strength. You first have to make the decision to answer, “the call”.
That’s when the Holy Spirit’s voice came into clarity and I realized I was trying to do this all on my own. In tune with the Holy Spirit, Jesus provided the clear answer for this teammate. He told me exactly what needed to be said in that moment. After that, the atmosphere shifted and I could see her get physically lighter. It’s a continual choice everyday to choose myself or Christ’s strength. What will you choose today?
