(2CDYH3N Kintsugi beige bowl. Gold cracks restoration on old Japanese ceramic.)
Father, I’m struggling to get my head all here. Help me reel in my thoughts and heart as we come together. May I do what is pleasing in Your eyes. Amen.
Romans 8:31-34 (<<click here to read the passage)
I haven’t spoken of this for a while, but do you know why this blog is titled “More than Useless”? Well, it all began with a dissatisfaction in my life. I accepted Jesus as my Savior at a very early age – so early in fact that I don’t remember the exact act of asking Him to do so. I will back that up by saying that this does not make me a super saint or anything close. I have stumbled and fallen too many times to count throughout my 60+ years. But where my faith has lagged, Jesus’ faithfulness has never wavered – not once!
The thing is though He has been my Savior for so long, in a lot of ways, I don’t feel I live up to what a believer in Christ should be. Yes, I preach. Yes, I have faithfully put this blog out for almost eight years now…but those things are just ways I express my thoughts and heart in my relationship with Him.
Thinking back to my youth, I have stood back in awe of what God has used me to accomplish. I have done things. I have touched lives. And all with the sincerest desire to do them for Him. Where my struggle has been is that my humanity has slowed me down. My lack of effort or enthusiasm has weighed upon me. My thoughts, both in the past and yet today, basically boil down to this: what more could I have done if I had really put my mind to it? How much greater of an impact could I have made?
Many times, I have felt useless in that there is so much more I could have done…
I see the lives of many around me and I stand back in awe of what they are doing – churches growing, lives being changed left and right under their ministry. And here I am just plodding along. I wonder not so much that they may think poorly of my efforts, but what weighs upon my heart and mind is what the world thinks. And by that, I mean, in their minds are they thinking, “Is that all this Christianity stuff adds up to? If so, what’s the big deal? Whoop-de-do! Is that all that this dead-and-gone Jesus person can accomplish? I’m really not impressed…”
But then I read the words of the Apostle Paul in these verses, and my perspective changes.
If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us. NLT
I don’t have to please the world; I just have to point the world to Him. I can’t worry about, what they think; I just have to concern myself with what He thinks. And let Him take care of the rest. That doesn’t mean I’m off the hook as to how I live, for what I say and do does reflect on Him but when I falter – and I do – I just have to trust that He is bigger than me. I, myself, am not the one they must follow. I am merely the pointer to the One they must follow.
Lord Jesus, continue to use me in my imperfection as only You can. Draw others to You for only then can they too be changed. Amen.
Apr 2nd, 2023, Sun, 8:07 pm
For more on the beginnings of More than Useless check out these two links:
