dreams

What I Wanted to Be When I Grew Up

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I’ve started a new blog at www.droppingtheact.com. Check it out for the latest content.

When I was about six-years-old I declared to my mom, as we drove down the street with the wind in our hair (probably because the A/C didn’t work!), “When I grow up, I want to be a mom and drive a blue convertible.”

Over the years, the answer to the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” has changed and evolved for me.  Although I stuck with about half of that original declaration–being a mom–I decided the blue convertible might not be that practical.  But there were other dreams and loves that I had as a child and teenager that I had forgotten about, or shelved, in the busyness of fulfilling my dream of motherhood.

In a previous post I mentioned the book Quiet by Susan Cain and promised some follow-up on my blog about introverts.  Well, I came across this particular section of the book where Cain gives some very practical steps for introverts to discover where they fit in the workplace (but it translates to ministry just as well).  I thought it was fantastic!

Cain says: “First, think back to what you loved to do when you were a child…the answer you gave may have been off the mark, but the underlying impulse was not.  If you wanted to be a fireman, what did a fireman mean to you?  A good man who rescued people in distress?  A daredevil?…If you wanted to be a dancer, was it because you got to wear a costume, or because you craved applause, or was it the pure joy of twirling around at lightning speed?  You may have known more about who you were then than you do now.

Second, pay attention to the work you gravitate to…

Finally, pay attention to what you envy.  Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth” (218).

Good stuff, right?  Like I said, it got my wheels turning and I remembered, for me, those things I loved as a child were writing and creating things.  Making things with my hands.  Creating beauty with words or objects.  Those were the things that brought me joy–and really still do–I had just forgotten.  I’m so glad that God has given me the opportunity find the joy in these things again.  I’m pretty sure he’s delighting in my delight! 🙂

What did you want to be when you were a child?  Why?

How can you find an outlet in your life and ministry for the things that bring you joy? 

 

God Can Do It Better–So I think I’ll Let Him

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I’ve started a new blog at www.droppingtheact.com. Check it out for the latest content.

“Only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God…Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you?…anyone who tries to live by his own effort, independent of God, is doomed to failure.”  Galatians 3:3,5-6,10 (The Message)

This passage has been popping up over and over again in my mind.  A small voice reminding me, when I get off course, what happens when I try to control the things I think I have control of!  You see, I always start off with the greatest of intentions and God-given dreams, and yet, sometimes, when I get my hands on them, I mess them all up by taking them out of God’s hands and twisting them with mine.

Take this blog, for example.  I almost didn’t start it, because I (quite arrogantly) thought it depended on me.  Now obviously, in one sense, it very much depends on me to type the words.  But in another–I pray over every post that God would use it as he chooses and place it before the eyes that he wants to see it–so in that sense, it’s totally up to God.  But when I try to take it back into my own hands I obsess over my stats tab and how many people have read (or not read!) my current post, and I start wondering what topics would be more popular, instead of writing about what God has laid on my heart, and I end up completely forgetting that God has way more control over that stuff than I ever will!

This blogging journey is reminding me (on an almost daily basis) of something I prayed several years ago (sometimes those prayers can really come back around to bite me!)…I prayed, “I never want to do anything that I can do in my own strength.”  During our time in India, I had seen God repeatedly make beauty out of very ugly situations, things that, left to my own hands, would have never been salvageable.  But God was able to redeem them.  He was, and is, able to do things that I NEVER could!  It was at that point that I threw out the white flag and prayed the prayer that I’m now trying to live out day by day.  The funny thing is, when I remember that it’s not up to me to be anything but obedient, I feel free!

Question for Reflection or Comment:

What is God calling you to do that is way beyond what you can do in your own strength?  What’s keeping you from doing it?