God's Gift

Words are my thing.  I love them so much, I truly believe they are God's gift to me. When I don't have time to read them, I try to make a way to at least listen to them. Right now I'm listening to the memoir of an author I've loved since I was a teenager. The following is a quote from one of HIS mentors:

All that is not the love of God has no meaning for me. I can truthfully say that I have no interest in anything but the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. If God wants it to, my life will be useful through my words and witness. If he wants it to, it will bear fruit through my prayers and sacrifices. But the usefulness of my life is his concern, not mine. It would be indecent for me to worry about that.

 -The final journal entry of Brother Domonique of The Little Brothers of Jesus
as quoted in All is Grace by Brennan Manning

{Emphasis added by me.} Sometimes I get so caught up in making a difference for God, I lose site of Him. Under a holy banner, the god of self creeps in. I want fruit - not to show how incredible my Lord is, but to serve as proof of my worth.

Little by little the Father is showing me my gift, while also keeping me humble. This past Sunday, I co-taught Bible study with a classmate because our regular teacher was out sick. I felt like I had so much information in my head to share, but I got tripped up on my most favoritest of things - words.
Thankfully, my sister-in-Christ was able to step in and speak eloquently about the topic at hand.

Confession: I've stopped the timer twice already to give myself a break from this post. Despite the quote above, I can't stop wishing for my words to be powerful. Wanting something more from them, beyond just the freedom to put words to the page.

Okay I'll just come out with it. I've been asked to start an off-shoot Bible Study class by my current teacher. Our class is about to outgrow the size of our room.

Part of me is excited. I love reading the word and dissecting it with others. But the other part of me is sad. I've really come to love our the community my current class has cultivated. As a unite, we are living the Christian life as it ought to be lived. Those are big shoes to fill, in taking a leadership position of my own.

In addition to that, I'm afraid of the vacuum in my life that it will create. A new class will take time to get established, the relationships will take work. This whole process will take work, and reliance on God every step of the way. Those are 2 things that, quite frankly, I suck at.

 
Linking up with Jaime today, despite having gone over the 5 minute rule several times over.