“When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.”
1 Cor 2:1-5
For months now, these verses have been like a magnet – I find myself turning the pages of my Bible to this same spot over and over. It was even the verse handed out to us to meditate on during training camp for The World Race. It follows me everywhere! It’s become my theme verse…and I believe it will be the theme of my next year.
Something within me cheers at the truth of these words, while the rest of me stares dumbfounded, realizing the repercussions of that truth in my life! For that to be true in me, I will have to change. I LOVE wisdom…I gravitate to it, absorb it like a sponge, and regurgitate it as soon as an opportunity presents itself. I love to ponder things in my mind and grapple with understanding ideas larger than mys
elf. That’s a gift from the Lord, and it’s a good thing…in perspective. For me however, it’s become a road block to walking in the fullness of what God wants to do in me. For 29 years, I have exercised my mind tirelessly…this year, the Lord has said, enough. No more resting on MY wisdom and understanding, MY knowledge and wit. No, it’s time to be weak…for much trembling at times…to walk in brokenness. Instead, it’s time to learn to rest in God’s strength; to listen for His voice, which expounds mysteries I could never fathom on my own, and demonstrates His power in ways I never even conceived possible. It’s not my words or persuasive arguments, no matter how profound or deep I perceive them to be, that will ever change people’s lives.
elf. That’s a gift from the Lord, and it’s a good thing…in perspective. For me however, it’s become a road block to walking in the fullness of what God wants to do in me. For 29 years, I have exercised my mind tirelessly…this year, the Lord has said, enough. No more resting on MY wisdom and understanding, MY knowledge and wit. No, it’s time to be weak…for much trembling at times…to walk in brokenness. Instead, it’s time to learn to rest in God’s strength; to listen for His voice, which expounds mysteries I could never fathom on my own, and demonstrates His power in ways I never even conceived possible. It’s not my words or persuasive arguments, no matter how profound or deep I perceive them to be, that will ever change people’s lives. So what does that mean for me this next year? Well, God’s been whispering this idea in my heart for almost a year, so that’s a question I’ve been pondering excitedly for some time. As plans for the World Race fell into place, I thought I had a good grasp on what that was going to look like…but then training camp threw me a curve ball I wasn’t expecting. I like to lead. I’ve been in leadership positions more and more as the years have gone by. I wanted to lead a team over this next year on the Race – and, honestly, I pressumed that I would…which now, knowing the depth of character and strength of leadership of those on my squad…seems terribly arrogant. Then one day, weeks before training camp, the Lord asked me a simple question: “what if I don’t make you the leader…what then?” What?? The very idea of that shook me, and I really had to wrestle that one through with the Lord…but I let it go. I figured that if He was going to make me into a broken servant, which I long for…then He very likely might intend to do that apart from what I’m comfortable doing. So off to training camp I went, quite content to not lead…and even beginning to relish the idea of maybe having less responsibilities.
…so, it was with a great deal of surprise that I was in fact chosen to lead my team!
God is so funny how He does things. If we are holding something too tight, even good things, he gently asks us to let it go, to lay it down, to give it to Him. Often when we open our hand and let it drop at His feet…He picks it up, smiles, and hands it back to us. He just wanted to make sure we would let it go before He entrusted it to our care.
So, having been to training camp and processed all that God showed me during that time, and all the He has shown me leading up to this point, I have some new conclusions that I will hold loosely as I move forward. God does indeed want me to lead this next year…but not how I had envisioned. For some reason, I had a hard time pairing a broken servant with the role of a strong leader…as though they were somehow incompatible. But that’s exactly what He’s calling me to be this next year. I was talking to a friend as I was processing this, “a strong…broken…servant leader. I don’t even know what that looks like!?” I told her. She thought for a moment, and then said, “well…..Jesus did it.” Her response made me smile, and put the last little puzzle piece together in my overworked little mind. Yes He did.
“…for I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified“
