Last week I wrote a post, Are You Praying to Be Used Big?, about a time as a single woman when I finally gave up, turned in my reins, and surrendered my future to God. Then I asked Him to use me for something big. I know my request came from a place of just pouring my future into God’s hands and not wanting anything to inhibit His work in my life. It was a request to show my palms out, facing up, fully open to whatever. Even if “whatever” meant that I break to get there.
After I wrote this post a woman commented very thoughtfully, and I could not get her comment out of my mind. For days last week I read and reread it, mulling over every word. She wrote:
“I think most people (myself included) need to learn how to trust God in the small things before we have faith for the big things. We know the basics: ‘He has shown you, O man, what is good. And was does the Lord require of you? But to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.’ (Micah 6:8) But we want to move past the basics and know all the big ways to work for God. But, see, God doesn’t need us. God could raise stones up to serve Him. I get caught up in the ‘I want to do something BIG for you today, God’ trap, and I forget that I can’t do anything for God. God doesn’t need me, but He loves and wants me–that’s better than being needed. Seeking the Lord first, finding fulfillment in Him, trusting Him with the little things–that’s what most people need to focus on. When we’re faithful with little, He is faithful to give us more.”
Six years ago, sitting in that one bedroom apartment, I truthfully prayed that God would use me big. And my post last week was a truthful account of the events that occurred only three years later.
But what I may have missed is that none of it had anything to do with me or my prayers. As I read this reader’s comment above my heart was humbled. I don’t know if in the other post I gave God all of the credit – all of it – from the prayer, to giving me the ability to even ask the prayer, to making me ready to receive the answer.
“God doesn’t need us. He could raise stones up to serve Him.” This is so true, and God didn’t need me. I just wanted to be free from anything that might make it to where I was not usable. I wanted to be faithful in whatever, even pain, because for years I had not. I had kicked and screamed and fought and demanded and manipulated. I was determined to get exactly what I wanted. Then I realized that maybe, just maybe, I was missing out on all that God wanted to do with me and through me. No longer did I want to be in that place. I did not want my own defiance to keep me from anything God had for me – whether to change me or to use me.
I want to continue to ask big, bold prayers from God because He is a big, bold God, and He can handle them. I want to ask for miracles and healing and all the impossible that my mind can’t wrap around.
But instead of asking to be used big, maybe I should instead ask for help in being faithful – faithful in all of it – in the big, in the small, and even in the nothing. God doesn’t need me, but I don’t want my unfaithfulness to be the reason He doesn’t use me. I want to be a poured out vessel for anything He chooses.
And one last thought – It’s all big to God. A smile to the elderly woman who carries her groceries to her car alone is just as big as getting on a stage and speaking to thousands of people. Because, after all, doesn’t it all come from the same Holy Spirit, the same God, who equips us to be able to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly”?
My prayer is to be faithful in the whatever and to be used however He wants to use me because in His eyes it’s all being used for something big, something glorious, that none of us can even comprehend.
Thank you, dear reader, for your comment. Thank you for giving me something to think about. That is the purpose of community.
What do you think about these thoughts and the reader’s comments? Please share with us. We learn so much from each other.
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