I slept in an extra hour this morning skipping my usual work out for the warmth and comfort of my bed. My body wasn’t awake but my mind had already responded to the alarm. “Good morning Lord,” I prayed, “please speak through me today.” Today I was giving the Cornerstone Scripture Study teaching and it wasn’t the easiest of lessons to prepare. Not because of content but due to lack of content.
Genesis 21 – Sarah banishes Hagar and her son Ishmael away but God comes to their aid and fulfills His promise in both Abraham’s son’s – Sarah’s son Isaac and Hagar’s son Ishmael. I believe the main take away from this segment of Genesis is that regardless of our ‘sinful’ nature, whether we are spoiled, unbelieving, or even jealous God LOVES US ALL and will keep His promise to every single one of us. And despite the wayward paths we might choose away from God’s will for our life He will find a way to make good of these poor decisions and bring us back in line with Him and His promise for us.
It is about BELIEVING God and in Genesis 21 both Sarah and Hagar are asked to believe Him.
In order to highlight this point God led me down a road to be transparent and reveal something very close and personal to me: entries from my journal.
In the slumber of sleep I began to go over what God directed for the lesson and my heart began to pound bringing me out of sleep and into the day. I made sure the boys were awake and getting ready and then entered into my prayer time, offering up the day, the lesson and everything else that had my pulse racing into His hands.
By the end of the lesson I was at peace and God gifted me with the encouragement and love of the women in the bible study. Then two women came up to me and said they were encouraged to begin writing in journals again and making their entries poignant. Not so everyone could read them but so that maybe one day their children or grandchildren could get a better sense of who they are.
Again God came through and I was so happy to hear the response. 🙂 I can’t share with you the entire teaching because it is too long but I will share with you the first journal entry :
April 9, 2005 (8 years ago…I was one year as full time youth minister in Kingwood and had not yet begun my journey as a ‘speaker’)
Dear God,
Inside of me is this…oh, craving. I’ve describe it many times in my life and its been with me as long as I can remember. It’s a nugget of pure knowledge that I have always known I am to do something that will be significant for God’s Kingdom. But, at the same time I struggle against this craving – this knowledge – because as sure, as sure as I am WHO AM I to even entertain such a notion? I am certainly not a saint, nor a devout, extremely pious person. Struggle as I may, I do believe, there is no doubt to that, but I can’t seem to shrug off this world to be that person that I ‘think’ would incorporate having the credentials to doing something significant for the Kingdom of God.
I even laugh at myself just writing it. Possibly I am a fool. Or I am mad!
Beyond all of my personal doubts and insecurities I do pray fervently that those who I minister to know that what I give them is real. I have given my life over to Christ. I pray every morning He take the reigns – but I am human as well – so I struggle as we all do.
As I sat in the prayer service for the Sacrament of Confirmation last night I was so moved by the excitement of the candidates that were there fully to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. We are all blessed to be in such a moment!
I am blessed to be the mother of two amazing boys and to have a husband that is my life. I am blessed to love and have the love of so many amazing young people and I can’t wait to see where they go in life. And to have any affect on them at all is more gift than I could ever deserve or have prayed for.
I don’t want to lose this feeling of gratefulness. I don’t want to lose the innocence of not feeling ‘good enough’. Because if I ever do reach that point then my true purpose in life will be lost.
As I said I can’t begin to give you the full teaching nor the other journal entry that tied into the lesson of Sarah and Hagar and God’s promise but what I do want to share is the revelation I had as I read this entry out loud. Lately in spiritual direction I’ve been struggling with one concept ‘not feeling good enough’…it didn’t dawn on me until I read this entry out loud that God was bringing me back to the understanding of my innocence and true purpose.
Dear God, keep me humble. 🙂
Blessings
Shannon