Initially, when I had agreed to speak, I thought it was just to the church’s youth group. No big, I thought. Afterall, talking to teenagers is what I was supposed to be doing with my life right now. I even knew what I was going to talk about. But then, right as I was leaving Bethesda Ministries for the day, I asked how long I should talk for. Then the pastor, Pastor Rose, clarified for me…”You preach Sunday.”
“Ummmm….ok?” I mustered.
And just like that, I had gotten myself into a formal speaking engagement. The way it happened, I was certain it was a God thing. Just that morning, I had been praying about how I had formal training for teaching and that hadn’t been used on this trip. In fact, I’d been quite content to let my teammates take all the teaching opportunities. I had actually felt a bit convicted of that. Cut to that afternoon and Pastora Rose asking me to speak. But even though I was certain God has His hand in this, I had no idea what to speak about.
I spent all of Saturday racking my brain coming up with numerous ideas. I even wrote out more than a few outlines. But nothing felt right. Nothing felt like it was what God wanted. Finally, just before midnight on Saturday I had something. It still didn’t feel ideal, but at least I had something.
So the next day, I’m sitting in the church service during worship. As I was worshipping, God started bringing all these little things to mind, and slowly but surely a completely different sermon was developing. I almost expected it to happen that way- for God to spring what He wanted to say on me just before I spoke. It had to happen that way, so that His words were spoken, not my own.
Still, when I was called onstage with no idea what was about to come out of my mouth, I was nervous. I didn’t know until I announced to the congregation, “I had something prepared, but I don’t feel like that’s what I’m supposed to share.”
And with that, I launched into my very first sermon. I talked about how we, as Christians, are warriors! And we need to act accordingly! There was a sign hanging up in the church that displayed the church’s vision, mission, purpose and BATTLECRY! I LOVE that! Because as a church, we should have a battlecry!
I went on to discuss how one way we can do that is to accept our God-given gifts, even if we don’t like them, because we can’t argue with the One who gave them to us. God gifted each of His children uniquely for his or her specific purpose and to bring glory to His name. So we can’t shrink from that; we can’t downplay our gifts because God isn’t helped by us playing small.
As I was speaking, all these points and stories that God has been teaching me for the past few months, or really ever since training camp back in October, started to connect. And it was amazing! True, I was a little rocky at first, and it took some adjustment with the translator, but overall, God used me. And that’s awesome! God used what He had given me. He gifted and equipped me exactly right for that sermon. Not that I’m the best teacher or the best pastor, but I am the only one who could have given that message because He gifted me accordingly.
Hmm… sounds familiar, huh? Isn’t it funny how God had me share exactly what He was trying to teach me? He’s good that way. 🙂
