obedience

Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: When You Really Want God to Send Someone Else

September 29, 2013 By Michelle

One of my favorite lines in the whole Bible is Moses’ response to God when God asks him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt:

“Pardon your servant, Lord,” Moses responds to God. “Please send someone else.” (Exodus 4:13)

I love how polite and respectful Moses is. And I love how he refuses to budge, even when standing face-to-face with God himself. Moses has moxy. Can you imagine outright refusing God, straight to his face?

I can. I do it all the time.

Last spring my friend Lelia called one evening to ask a favor. Turned out, one of her conference speakers had a family emergency. Three days before the retreat, Lelia was calling to ask if I might be able to step in to speak.

I said yes to Lelia on the spot. Then I got off the phone and spent the next two days desperately trying to come up with a Plan B.

I wrangled with God. I bargained with him. I begged and pleaded. I was, quite literally, Moses – terrified to speak in front of a crowd. “Come on, Man,” I said to God. “You know me. You know I hate public speaking, and you know I don’t ever, ever roll with anything. I’m high-maintenance. This is not my gig. I do not do eleventh-hour speaking engagements.”

Of course, God would have none of it.

No Plan B presented itself. I went to that conference, and I stood in front of that crowd with my knees knocking. I sweated so much at the podium, I removed my bracelet, my watch and my jacket during the talk. I joked to the audience that it was a good thing we only had 45 minutes, or I might have been standing in my underwear by the end of the hour.

While the talk wasn’t perfect, it got done. And just as God promised Moses, he was right there with me, right there in the room.

Before I spoke at the first session, my roommate, a woman I’d met only hours before, sat down next to me at the back of the room as I was nervously cramming for my talk. She put her hand on my shoulder, and she prayed for me – for strength, for articulate words, for a message that would sink deep into the hearts of the women participating in my session. Jen was my Aaron. She gave me the assurance and confidence that I could, and would, walk to the front of the room, stand behind the podium, and speak.

“God’s not interested in competence as much as he is in willingness,” writes Evi Wusk. This, I know from first-hand experience, is true. God can create competence in us, but he won’t create willingness – not because he can’t, but because he wants us to say yes to him on our own accord. God gives us the choice – yes or no. And if we choose yes, he guarantees he will be with us every step of the way.

Questions for Reflection:
Has God ever asked you to do something you absolutely did not want to do? Did you ever answer the call like Moses (and me) and try to say no? Can you think of a time when God was present for you, buoying you in your weakness?

: :

Welcome to the Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday community, a place where we share what we are hearing from God and his Word each week. If you’re here for the first time, click here for more information.

Please include the Hear It, Use It button (grab the code below) or a link in your post, so your readers know where to find the community if they want to join in — thank you!

Please also try to visit and leave some friendly encouragement in the comment box of at least one other #HearItUseIt participant. And if you want to tweet about the community, please use the #HearItUseIt hashtag.

Thank you — I am so grateful that you are here!

Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: Trusting that the Door Will Open

April 28, 2013 By Michelle

I remember a conversation I had with my officemate Pam right before I quit my job. I’d been mired in indecision, torn over whether or not I should take the leap from the security of a job I’d held for ten years to the risky unknown of freelance writing. “It’s like you’re at the end of a long, dark hallway,” Pam said to me one morning as we sat at our desks, the sun slanting through the blinds. “You just have to take the first step.”

“Yeah, but I’d like to see a couple of doors down that hallway first,” I replied, laughing. “They don’t even have to be wide open, a sliver of light would be fine. I just want to know the doors are actually there first.”

When I read today’s story about Peter’s release from prison (Acts 12:1-17), I wondered if perhaps he had felt a bit like me as he stood on the cusp of freedom. Despite any reservations he may have had, though, Peter reacted immediately to the angel’s call. He didn’t weigh his options. He didn’t hem and haw. He didn’t scratch out a list of pros and cons. When the angel called, Peter obeyed and followed.

Later in the story we learn that Peter hadn’t even realized the angel was real. He’d assumed it was a vision. Yet he had still followed, no questions asked. And when Peter took that first step in obedience, when he slipped on his sandals and followed that angelic vision out of the prison cell, a miraculous thing happened. Every door opened along the way:

They passed the first and second guard posts and came to the iron gate leading to the city, and this opened for them all by itself. So they passed through and started walking down the street, and then the angel suddenly left him. (Acts 12:10)

Only after Peter acted in obedience did he realize it had been an angel of the Lord who had been guiding him to freedom all along.

Walking in faith, trust and obedience is scary. It’s difficult to take that first step, not knowing for sure if the gates will swing open or if the doors will even appear. But sometimes I think God simply wants us to trust him enough to take that first, tentative step, without the signed-on-the-dotted-line guarantee that everything will work out. Sometimes I think God wants us to step out in faith, trusting that he will brighten the dark hallway and open doors along the way.

A year ago this week I took that first step. I quit my job and leaped (or perhaps tiptoed is a better word) into my new life as a writer. Although I hadn’t seen them when I stood at the end of that long, dark hallway, the doors were indeed there. Some of them appeared when I least expected it. Some of the doors had been there all along, and I simply hadn’t seen them until I stepped closer.

Can you think back to a time in your life when you stepped out in faith, not sure the doors would open, or even if the doors were there at all? What happened as a result?

: :

Welcome to the “Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday” community, a place where we share what we are hearing from God and his Word.

If you’re here for the first time, click here for more information. Please include the Hear It, Use It button (grab the code below) or a link in your post, so your readers know where to find the community if they want to join in — thank you!

Please also try to visit and leave some friendly encouragement in the comment box of at least one other Hear It, Use It participant. And if you want to tweet about the community, please use the #HearItUseIt hashtag.

Thank you — I am so grateful that you are here!

Click here to get posts in your email in-box. Click here to “like” my Facebook Writer page. Thank you!

Blogging Benedict: Real-Time Obedience

March 22, 2013 By Michelle

Funny how God works sometimes. As I read and write about St. Benedict’s vow of obedience this week, God is teaching me the lesson of obedience in real time.

Jane Tomaine notes that the Latin root for obedience is obaudire, “to listen thoroughly.” She points out that in his Rule, Benedict describes obedience as both listening and responding:

“Those who practice obedience set aside their own concerns, plans, and tasks, even going so far as to leave work unfinished in order to respond quickly to the request. The requested action would be completed without hesitation, almost at the same moment the request was made.” (from St. Benedict’s Toolbox: The Nuts and Bolts of Benedictine Living)

When I check my phone on Monday, I see a message from an unfamiliar number. It’s Lelia. Turns out, one of the speakers on the agenda for her conference this weekend has a family emergency and can’t make it … might I be able to speak in her place?

I say yes.

Let me tell you, one of my greatest fears, second only to throwing up, is speaking in public. I would rather visit the gynecologist and get a mammogram and a root canal and my legs waxed all in the same day. I would rather stand in line at the DMV every day for a month straight. I would rather clean hard water deposits off my bathroom faucet and my neighbor’s bathroom faucet and her neighbor’s bathroom faucet with a toothbrush. I’d rather do just about any other dreaded task over speaking in front of an audience.

But I say yes. It’s so obvious I should say yes that I don’t even think about it. “No problem,” I tell Lelia. “It’ll be totally fine, I promise.”

Then I hang up the phone. And Freak. Out.

The funny part about this story is that only hours before, I’d griped to Brad about how I needed to line up some speaking engagements. Not that I want to line up speaking engagements, mind you, but I realize speaking is part of the territory: published writers are expected to speak. Some days I wish I lived in the 19^th century so I could hole up in an attic like Emily Dickinson and just write without worrying about the platform-schmatform and social media and whether I should wear pants or a skirt when I speak in public.

“It seems like all these speaking opportunities seem to drop right into other people’s laps,” I told Brad that afternoon. “I don’t get it.” He’d shrugged. Clearly he didn’t get it either.

After I got off the phone with Lelia and was catatonic on the couch in primal freak-out mode, Brad reminded me of our conversation earlier in the day. “Hey, you just got a speaking engagement dropped into your lap.” Not to be an ingrate, but I’d been thinking more along the lines of “dropped-into-my-lap-with-four-months-notice,” rather than “dropped-into-my-lap-with-four-days-notice.” God is clever like that sometimes, isn’t he?

Oddly, in between bouts of catatonia and feverish PowerPointing, I am also feeling an overwhelming sense of peace and calm. Part of me knows that everything will be fine, just like I told Lelia. There’s something liberating about being so hopelessly out of control and in over your head. There is serenity in knowing I can’t possibly do anything but hand it entirely over to God.

So that’s what I am doing. Being obedient. Handing it all over to God – the worry, the insecurity, the fear, the queasiness. Trusting that he will be right here with me, teaching me what to say (Exodus 4:12).

So tell me, when’s the last time you were hopelessly in over your head? How did God set your heart and mind at ease?

I would so deeply appreciate prayers for my friend, the one who was originally scheduled to speak, who is dealing with a family emergency right now. And also, while you’re at it, that I might keep my head on straight, not succumb to primal freak-out and, above all, convey God’s message to the ladies at the Refresh My Heart conference this Saturday. Amen. And thank you.

This post is part of my Friday Lenten series called Blogging Benedict. I am using the text St. Benedict’s Toolbox: The Nuts and Bolts of Everyday Benedictine Living as my guide.

Click here to get posts in your email in-box. Click here to “like” my Facebook Writer page. Thank you!

obedience

Footer