sometimes we compare our abilities to what other people can do. maybe I can play the guitar and sing, but, not like that guy over there can, so I devalue what I have based on what he has.
this is so backwards! & sad. many people are waiting to use what God has given to them until they’re exceptionally-up-to-expectations-excellent. there’s nothing wrong with desiring excellence. but, in reality, we need to just step out in faith and do the thing. momentum begets momentum. & to practice is the way forward.
we often feel like what God has given us to share with the world is nothing special. it’s normal to me, so why would anyone else think it special?
maybe you don’t see what you have as important, when, in reality, you’re the only person on earth who can do it like you can. no one else. no one can do it like you can.
if you are funny, tell jokes & make people smile! if you can bake, make many pies! if you are a singer, sing. teachers teach, athletes train and sewers sew! just do the thing. that is how you will get better anyways—by practice! by actually engaging that unique part of the image of God in you, the beauty the goodness the special talent or skill!
whatever excuses or lies you’ve heard about why you’re not writing, not singing, not cooking, not painting, not starting a business or whatever that special ability God’s gifted to you, tell it to shut up! & instead believe—i am created on purpose, with a purpose. I am here to know and make God known. no one can reflect Him in the exact, unique way He made me to! I get to shine my own specific rainbow in earth. so I must shine! I must do the thing i’m made to do! otherwise the world will be missing a ray of light, as no one can shine the way I am created to!
so create! sing! make music & paint & build websites, landscape, & fix cars!! write books & teach children & pole vault! whatever the thing you’re given to do, your gift, do it well, for Him!
what will you do with what you’re given?
God gave you gifts and abilities and talents for a reason!
you know— we cannot trust our feelings, because even though a bungee jumper feels the free fall, they are always held and connected. so let’s live connected to Father. even when we feel the gravity, there is a Love who keeps us safe. we can feel like we’re falling, but the Lord. but the Lord is our saving line of hope.
He keeps us, leads us with cords of love
“I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love. to them I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them.” Hosea 11:4
life can be like a bungee cord.
sometimes we stumble, but He pulls us back up. snap back! “for the one who delights in God, though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with His hand.”(Psalms 37:24)
life can be like a bungee cord.
when we trust His way is best, we jump into faith & are found. obedience to God is all! so today take a leap faith, let it go, release. trust God to catch you as you step out on His Word! be. rest. the peace is found in waiting. & know—you are kept by cords of love.
how many jellyfish jig dance recitals has God choreographed, for an audience of One? how many waterfalls gush in secret, cascading down cliffside or mountain crag, hidden and glorious? how many stars He named, for none but Himself! how many ant parades He’s led, how many birds’ songs He’s composed, how many baby birds He’s coaxed out of their nest for their first time to fly, or sunrises He’s painted, storms He’s sketched. & all for Himself! we really are ignorant of all these grandiose and important daily miracles! yet God conducts it all, from His beauty for His glory. how many times has He vacuumed earth dew back up to Heaven, only for it to fall again when clouds unglue? how do lightning bugs lead dragonflies at night? how to be whale’s doula, or the tulip’s joy. daily these hidden mysteries, of wonder and awe, are created and cared for by God—from whom and for whom all things live and move and have their being. & daily these hidden mysteries escape us. yet He still does them, all for Himself.
of all God’s endless secret beauty on earth, the most amazing to me is that the evolving hairs on your head are all numbered. the tears you’ve wept, kept in His bottle. the details of you, fully known and fully loved. so let the God of detail and universe, ocean and atom, come after you. let Him hug you to life. because He lives and loves and longs for you to love Him, too.💙
Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew? From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the frost of heaven? Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in their thicket? Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God for help, and wander about for lack of food? Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the does? Can you number the months that they fulfill, and do you know the time when they give birth, when they crouch, bring forth their offspring, and are delivered of their young? Is the wild ox willing to serve you? Will he spend the night at your manger? Job 38
The very hairs of your head are all numbered. Matthew 10:30
You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. Psalm 56:8
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent. For in Him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in Heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross. Colossians 1:15-20
God perfectly knows Himself and, being the source and author of all things, it follows that He knows all that can be known. And this He knows instantly and with a fullness of perfection that includes every possible item of knowledge concerning everything that exists or could have existed anywhere in the universe at any time in the past or that may exist in the centuries or ages yet unborn.
AW Tozer
“O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.” Psalm 139:1-18 ESV