About a year & a half ago, God gave me a word to mark my life. It was the word “courageous.” In the time since, I’ve not always lived up to that word, but I have, somewhat steadily, grown into it. It still doesn’t fit quite right, but I’ve still got some growing to do in that respect. A lot, actually.
Last April, God marked me with another word: “focus.” In the past four months, I’ve been trying to unpack the meaning behind that one, and I’m only now beginning to have some vague comprehension of it.
Yesterday, God gave me yet another word, this one probably the most powerful yet. Before I reveal that word to the online universe, some background may be in order. For that past couple of months, I’ve had this pervasive sense in the depths of my soul that God has been preparing my heart for something. What that something is, I have no idea, despite my best efforts to figure it out. But this sense, this feeling, has continued to grow. Then came . . . the dream. (Fasten your seat belt; this could get weird.)
Wednesday night, I had a dream, one of those rare dreams that I actually remember. I’ll spare you the minutiae of it all and give you the main points. Early in the imaginary adventure, I delivered, not one, but two babies from two different mothers. From there, I ended up at a party (don’t know how I got there), where, through a window, I saw . . . a zombie. (I know. I don’t even like zombie movies, so imagine my surprise.) So, naturally, I went out to investigate, only to be chased by the aforementioned zombie (or undead-American, to be politically correct). After a brief chase, I turned and yelled at the zombie to leave me alone, which it did, running off into the woods.
The moment I awoke from this dream (at 5am, I might add), something in me knew that, strange as it may be, God was trying to speak to me. I came to realize the next day that God was going to put some life changing, wonderful things in my life, and that I’d meet some big resistance in the acceptance of it, but I’d be given the power to overcome it, even to the point of commanding it to be gone. Goofy dream, serious message. God knows how to get my attention.
So, two days later, God gives me the third word to mark my life; a word that actually brought me to tears when I read it. The word: “entrusted.” My immediate reaction: unworthiness.
In the wake of this, an argument with God ensued. “How can You trust me with anything of significance,” I yelled, “when it seems like everything I’ve put my hands to has been laid to waste?” I just didn’t feel like I deserved any kind of divine entrustment. Still don’t, to some extent.
Later that night, God led me to a verse that made some sense of it all and gave me a bit of peace. Paul, writing to the church in Ephesus, says, “Though I am the least deserving of all God’s people, he graciously gave me the privilege of telling the Gentiles about the endless treasures available to them in Christ.” (Ephesians 3:8) Paul, arguably one of the most forceful advancers of the Gospel in history, considered himself the “least deserving of all God’s people.” And his entrustment, to take that message to those who need it most, was a gift graciously given by the God he felt unworthy to serve. What hope there is in those words!
Who among us hasn’t felt inferior, unworthy, useless at some point in our lives. Yet it’s just such a person, one who is flawed and broken, that God consistently chooses to use as His ambassador, His messenger – His kid, the kid He loves immeasurably. So, go forth, commanding the zombie of inferiority to retreat in to the woods. We’ve got work to do.
