The anointing of God doesn’t always feel peaceful. Sometimes, it leaves our legs trembling and the heart racing.
“I can’t do this.”
In the fall of 1991, I began my seminary internship. Joyful anticipation collided with fear. Voices of the flesh whispered in my ears; chipping away at my confidence.
“Do you really think you can do this?”
Fear attempted to keep me from walking toward God’s purposes. What if I fail?
I reflected on my pathway to this place.
I recognized that I could never have arrived here on my own volition.
I realized that my cries of resistance to my Creator were nothing new. Same song, different singer.
“But I said, “Hold it, Master God! Look at me.
I don’t know anything. I’m only a boy! God told me, “Don’t say, ‘I’m only a boy.’
I’ll tell you where to go and you’ll go there.
I’ll tell you what to say and you’ll say it.
Don’t be afraid of a soul.
I’ll be right there, looking after you.”
God’s Decree.” Jeremiah 1:6-8
20-21 After Samuel got all the tribes of Israel lined up, the Benjamin tribe was picked. Then he lined up the Benjamin tribe in family groups, and the family of Matri was picked. The family of Matri took its place in the lineup, and the name Saul, son of Kish, was picked. But when they went looking for him, he was nowhere to be found. 22 Samuel went back to God: “Is he anywhere around?” God said, “Yes, he’s right over there—hidden in that pile of baggage.” 1 Samuel 10:21-22
Jeremiah flourished. He embraced God’s promises.
Saul missed out. He resisted them.
17-19″ And Samuel told him. “When you started out in this, you were nothing—and you knew it. Then God put you at the head of Israel—made you king over Israel. Then God sent you off to do a job for him, ordering you, ‘Go and put those sinners, the Amalekites, under a holy ban. Go to war against them until you have totally wiped them out.’ So why did you not obey God? Why did you grab all this loot? Why, with God’s eyes on you all the time, did you brazenly carry out this evil?” 1 Samuel 15:17-19.
I want to be a Jeremiah. How about you?
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I don’t know how I got here,
it’s so very far from where
I’ hoped, but it’s so clear,
my only currenc is prayer.
The monsters line up night and day
tp wreck the heart of me,
and I must daily find a way
to wipe my eyes, and see,
for there is yet good to behold,
and subtle grace remains
and though my hard death is foretold
I can give God the reins.
Cancer was never His intent;
it’s His love that’s Heaven-sent.
Ah, well. Should have been ‘currency’ in the fifth line, not ‘currenc’…whatever the latter may be.