Above all, this time of waiting was necessary to help shape me. It did this by deepening my relationship with and reliance on the Lord, and allowing me to better discern his voice so that I could know what he was telling me.
Preparing me for Service
I beleive that these lessons that I have learnt and am still learning in my current state of waiting are also preparing me for service.
I have a heart to serve the Lord, but I have the type of personality to get completely absorbed in what I do. I give my 100% or nothing at all. This can be a good quality, but it can also become a problem. In order to be able to serve the Lord, he needs to first teach me how to be still and how to hear his voice, and to engrain it within my mind and lifestyle how important these moments are for my spiritual life and my relationship with him.
I couldn't really serve him until I took hold of this, because without these moments I will not be able to hear him speak to me and guide me. If I become absorbed in service and so busy with things to do that I am not taking these quiet moments to be alone with God, then my relationship with him begins to suffer and my ability to hear his voice and understand his guidance also begins to suffer. I think it can be very possible to get so absorbed in what we are doing for the Lord that we stop personally hearing him guide us.
I also know that I have the type of personality that tends to like to distract herself. I needed to first be sure that I wasn't getting invovled in any type of service as a way to distract myself from any particular need or want - I wanted to be sure that I was doing it for the right reasons. I also needed to learn the valuable lesson from two posts ago, to find all of my fulfillment from God alone and my relationship with him, and not from service itself. This goes back to a blog post months ago when I talked about the call of God (the call of God is a call to know him, while service is a loving expression of that call - to want to serve the person most dear to your heart).
I also know that I have the type of personality that tends to like to distract herself. I needed to first be sure that I wasn't getting invovled in any type of service as a way to distract myself from any particular need or want - I wanted to be sure that I was doing it for the right reasons. I also needed to learn the valuable lesson from two posts ago, to find all of my fulfillment from God alone and my relationship with him, and not from service itself. This goes back to a blog post months ago when I talked about the call of God (the call of God is a call to know him, while service is a loving expression of that call - to want to serve the person most dear to your heart).
I also needed my concept of service to change as well. The closer I get to him and the more I learn of him and of who he is, the more I want to serve him. I have always looked for ways to serve the Lord with the gifts that he has given me, but these have been self-motivated. It was me saying "Lord I would like to serve you, and here are the ways I would like to do that," instead of me being before him, on my knees asking "Lord what would you have me do, how do you need me to serve you right now?"
I was beginning to be discouraged with my ability to serve here in Germany, since the language barrier is still a big problem for me. Of course I knew that prayer is always a needed service, and so I served and still serve in this way daily. But I didn't want this to be the only way that I served. I very readily wanted to help out with our Kindertag and children's camp here, and Sunday school...what ever opportunities arose where I could be of some kind of help. I began to doubt, however, how much of a help I could really be. I couldn't really speak much to the kids, I couldn't help lead bible discussions, I couldn't even help lead the singing. So I ended up cleaning bathrooms, washing tables, whatever I could do that didn't require much of me. And I felt like I wanted to be used more, in a bigger way, a better way. But those are human constructs of service, not God's concept of it.
Although I have been able to take a more active role as the months go by and my German improves, this service of washing tables actually taught me an important lesson about service in general. Service can be in the little things as much as it can be in the big things. As long as you come to it with the right attitude and heart, it is something that you are doing for God. And when we can humble ourselves to do something menial, God works in us to develop our heart and spirit to serve him in other ways. Like Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, sometimes what God is calling us to do is to take the lower place. So if all I can do right now is make the hot chocolate and sweep the floor, then you better beleive that I am going to put as much effort and love into that hot chocolate and to clean the floor as best as I possibly can. Once we are faithful in the small things, then he will equip us for the bigger things.
I have often noticed, too, that God tends to have to take baby steps with me. And he likes to go over the same lesson over and over again with me until they are properly learned and I have been molded in a certain way. Or perhaps I never learn the lesson the first time around, that could be completely true too. But I frequently get the feeling that he is molding me like clay in his hands. Every day he is carefully working out the small imperfections, and continues to shape me into a vessel fit for his use. He picks at the same imperfection over and over and over again on a daily basis until he has removed it from me. The more of these moments that we have where he has complete control to mold us into what he wants us to be - the best version of the vessel that he wants us to be - the more we can be used for his will. And the more that I allow him to change me into the person that he wants me to be, the more that I allow him to fit me to his perfect plan.
So, the most important part of this waiting of mine has not been to teach me a lesson of first being content befor he is willing to give me another blessing or to try me or test me (it's not like I earn the blessing from learning a lesson), but instead it has been a very necessary period of time and a huge blessing to actually change me and help me grow: I have been and am still being molded.
I am trying now to keep in mind, in whatever season of life I may be in and perhaps restless to move out of, that this beautiful time of close, personal relationship with the Lord where he can have free creative control over my life and is fashioning me will never be as profitable and abundant as right now in this season. I cannot rush the creative process and the molding from this season will be necessary for the next. Right now this time of waiting and being molded is a beautiful season when I can spend quality time with my saviour and be focused on him and only him, and on who he wants me to be and how he wants to use me (both right now and in the future). I shouldn't sell this time short or undervalue it because I am restless for something to change or I have a desire that can only be filled once I move into the next season of my life. "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven" (Ecclesiastes 3:1).
And just like that, in less than a year, God performed a major miracle in my life. He turned me from discontented and broken into completely fulfilled, satisfied, and stronger than I ever have been before. I'm not naive enough to think that there won't be hard times and lonely times ahead, but I also know that these times cannot shape me or break me, because I am in the hands of a magnificent potter who is a stronger force than any of these things, and he is making me into something beautiful.
I have often noticed, too, that God tends to have to take baby steps with me. And he likes to go over the same lesson over and over again with me until they are properly learned and I have been molded in a certain way. Or perhaps I never learn the lesson the first time around, that could be completely true too. But I frequently get the feeling that he is molding me like clay in his hands. Every day he is carefully working out the small imperfections, and continues to shape me into a vessel fit for his use. He picks at the same imperfection over and over and over again on a daily basis until he has removed it from me. The more of these moments that we have where he has complete control to mold us into what he wants us to be - the best version of the vessel that he wants us to be - the more we can be used for his will. And the more that I allow him to change me into the person that he wants me to be, the more that I allow him to fit me to his perfect plan.
So, the most important part of this waiting of mine has not been to teach me a lesson of first being content befor he is willing to give me another blessing or to try me or test me (it's not like I earn the blessing from learning a lesson), but instead it has been a very necessary period of time and a huge blessing to actually change me and help me grow: I have been and am still being molded.
I am trying now to keep in mind, in whatever season of life I may be in and perhaps restless to move out of, that this beautiful time of close, personal relationship with the Lord where he can have free creative control over my life and is fashioning me will never be as profitable and abundant as right now in this season. I cannot rush the creative process and the molding from this season will be necessary for the next. Right now this time of waiting and being molded is a beautiful season when I can spend quality time with my saviour and be focused on him and only him, and on who he wants me to be and how he wants to use me (both right now and in the future). I shouldn't sell this time short or undervalue it because I am restless for something to change or I have a desire that can only be filled once I move into the next season of my life. "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven" (Ecclesiastes 3:1).
And just like that, in less than a year, God performed a major miracle in my life. He turned me from discontented and broken into completely fulfilled, satisfied, and stronger than I ever have been before. I'm not naive enough to think that there won't be hard times and lonely times ahead, but I also know that these times cannot shape me or break me, because I am in the hands of a magnificent potter who is a stronger force than any of these things, and he is making me into something beautiful.
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