Here it is: I’ve finally started a blog. I’m not really sure what will come of the entries that follow this first post, but you have to start somewhere, right? I hope that my words encourage you wherever you are in your life to just take a minute to sit down, breathe and trust. God knows what He’s doing, even when it makes absolutely no sense.
So, this morning I couldn’t help from tearing up in church (you know when that happens? like you’re just sitting there and you’re unconsciously overwhelmed about a million and one things and you just kind of tear up for no reason? well, that was happening) and I was thinking about how I have known for nearly 4 months now that I am moving to Greensboro, North Carolina, but now it’s actually happening. I MOVE THIS WEEK! I’ve been stoked for this all summer and now reality has hit. Like ummm….I’m not ready for this. Earlier this week, a good friend of mine was asking me about how I’m feeling about my move. She asked me, “You ready!?” And before I could even think of a response I just blurted out, “NO!” But I meant that no in a good way. Like I have no idea what to expect in the next year of my life, and I don’t feel ready at all, but I think that’s the point.
We’re not supposed to always be ready.
I have been feeling these feelings of uncertainty and inadequacy as I think about what is in store for me in the Greensboro Fellows Program in the next year. I will be doing a paid internship, volunteering with Intervarsity at a local college and I’ll be involved in prayer groups and bibles studies and crazy adventures. And you know that voice that’s in the back of your head that tells you you’re unqualified? That you’re not good enough? That you can’t do it? It’s been there. All week long. And this morning at church, I realized that that voice is a liar. A bloody liar.
I was reminded at church with a killer sermon from Pastor Jeff (PJ if you’re friends with him), that we need to have confidence. We get tempted to look at opportunities (oh yeah, like my internship or Intervarsity) and immediately say to ourselves that we can’t do it. We can’t be preoccupied with our inadequacies, we have to be confident in HIS ability. I have to have the confidence that God is ultimately the one that is powerful and He is going to help me do these things that I feel I am inadequate to do. That’s the point. I’m not ready and I’m not 100% able, but HE IS! And He wants me to rely on Him and know that He knows what He is doing with my life.
A verse that stuck out to me from the passage we read at church comes from Revelation 3:7-13. ( I encourage you to read the whole passage because it’s a goodie!)
“I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” Revelation 3:8
It’s pretty obvious that God wants me in Greensboro. I’ll save some of those stories for my next post, but today, I want to focus on how little I am and how HUGE God is. The sermon this morning came at the perfect time and it was just what I needed to hear. I have been pretty overwhelmed in the past week about my inadequacy. About how I try so hard to be better and more prepared and “ready,” and then I just hit a wall and realize how weak and how NOT ready I am. It’s in moments like this that I’m tempted to believe the lie that I’m not good enough. But PTL for today’s boss sermon, because He has so clearly opened this door for me to North Carolina, and as He declares in this passage, no one can shut it. He is that powerful! He knows that I have little strength, but He will hold me fast and not let my foot slip.
And furthermore, this is exactly where God wants me. I think this is exactly where God wants all of us. Clinging to Him. He wants us to be dependent on Him and completely relying on Him. And to tell you the truth, it’s scary and awesome all at the same time to trust God. Take for example my move to Greensboro. Did you know that I don’t even know where I’m living yet? Move in day is September 2nd, and I don’t even have an address to plug into my GPS. (who am I kidding, no one uses GPS’s anymore. I meant my iPhone!). It’s all a trust exercise. And it’s all going to be one heck of an adventure. So to close today’s post, I’ll end with a verse that I think is going to by my life motto for the next year. The reference keeps coming up, so I think God is trying to tell me something.
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine…” Ephesians 3:20
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