The truth is, it's not about me. It's about God and God's people. Just about everyone in the Bible God called on to serve Him were not qualified by the world's standards. They were cowards (like Gideon), from lowly professions (David was a shepherd boy, Rahab was a prostitute) or handicapped (Abraham and Sarah were too old to have children, Moses might have been a stutterer). Much of the time, even they questioned God, "You want to use ME? Do you know who you're asking? I can't do that."
Yet they did. When they stepped back from seeing their own shortcomings and failures and trusted in God to work, God came through! He did things with and through them that we still marvel at centuries later. A quote I've heard often is: "God doesn't call the equipped but equips the called."
I've seen this in my own life. At Passion this year, I realized that I feared my problems were too big for God to work out or through. I wanted to let Him do amazing things with and through me but I was so worried I would get in the way and screw it up. All it takes a little reflection, though, to see how God has worked out and through my problems. That's sanctification. There will always an area in which we can grow more like Christ. It's not a bad thing at all. We'll never stop becoming more like Christ yet somehow more like who we were meant to be and I find that amazing.
So what does it take to be a leader for God? Faith and obedience. Faith is why you trusted in Him in the first place; it's what will help you obey. Sometimes we're told to wait, other times to act. If we just do as He says, He does the rest. He planned for it way in advance!
Fall of 2011 (see 3rd paragraph), I was itching to act on my faith but I didn't know what. Then Dustin Sams comes to the BCM worship and preaches out of James, faith results in works. He plugs staffing Super Summer and I applied. I'm a sedentary introvert. Why would I go to a camp hosting 2,800 teens, screaming, yelling, dancing and acting like a fool to get them pumped up? I was really anxious right on through the staff training in the days before the camp. But then something happened, I had a break down. It was during the second day of training and prep. I welcomed it. I was crying in the bathroom calling on God to work out of me what needed working out. People kept asking me what was wrong and trying to encourage me. I told them to let it be, it needed to happen.
For the rest of the camp, I was fine. I was exhausted, losing my voice but I was still cheering, singing and dancing. I was an encouragement to the campers and fellow staffers. I got to know and love my girls, all 24 of them (12 each for the junior and senior camps). Guess what? At the end of the camp, I was crying again. I was exhausted, overwhelmed and it was over. Another staffer at breakfast the next day actually asked me if I was okay because I was so quiet. I had to explain: nothing's wrong, this is the normal me.
In applying to staff, I was scared out of my wits but I knew God wanted me to do it. I knew I needed a challenge. Even now, I'm still daunted by what I'm being called to, and by the growth I desire and have asked for. Yet, when I've trusted in God and done as He asked, I've experienced amazing things. After faith and obedience, all I really need to be a leader is a love for and desire to serve others. In the end, we're not leaders to lord over subjects and make them do our bidding, we're servants working to build up and equip fellow believers to do and be what God desires (Ephesians 4:11-13). I have that. I can do that. So I will.
Ephesians 3:16-21 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
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