Shake Yourself

It seems that anytime I am about to start a new adventure or respond to a new opportunity, I go through the most debilitating warfare of feeling as if I am simply unable to do what is required of me; insecurities, doubt, and intimidation try to reign. There are times that I literally feel like running away but never quite sure where to go!  I read a statement in some article years ago that went something like this, …wherever you go, there you are. So forget running away, your insecurities will be there when you arrive. The voices we hear when the enemy is trying to undermine our calling comes through loud and clear.  We ‘all’ hear voices at one time or another.  I hate that and I have to fight it off and persevere in the knowledge that it is God who calls and equips. “…I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry…” ( I Timothy 1:12)

Understanding the purpose behind this kind of warfare helps. The harassment of the enemy comes for one main reason…to keep you and I from impacting the people God has called us to influence; to neutralize that influence and to render us impotent.  The enemy is not a bit threatened by our sermonizing or our oft quoted platitudes as long as we never step beyond that into ministry that plows the soil of people’s lives so that they may receive the seed of God’s word.  It is His truth that transforms lives.

A vital aspect of influential ministry is the ability to take the shattered pieces of our lives and offer them as emblems of the staying power of God.  I’ve probably said this before but indulge me.  It is not our gifts that qualify us but rather our scars! Henri Nouwen addresses some necessary attributes for leaders of tomorrow in his little book, The Wounded Healer: “It is a painful fact indeed… how poorly prepared most Christian leaders prove to be when they are invited to be spiritual leaders in the true sense…They have become unfamiliar with, and even somewhat afraid of, the deep and significant movements of the spirit…The man who can articulate the movements of his inner life...is able to create space for Him whose heart is greater than his, whose eyes see more than his, and whose hands can heal more than his.”

What we have to offer to others ( and what the enemy wants to disrupt) is our ability to articulate with those who are afraid, the things we have seen, heard, touched, and overcome.  We must be willing to put our own ‘tried’ faith at the disposal of those who need our help.

When the enemy comes and sits on our shoulder and shouts into our ears that ‘we are unable’…shake yourself, flick that demon off  and show your scars!