I’m an excellent student.  I love to learn. I am eager.  Quick.  Thoughtfully follow assignments with the intention of learning from it AND completing it in a timely manner.  I’m science.  I’m math.  I’m accomplishments full of brain power.  I….know things.

On Sunday, I picked up a piece at BCF about identifying your fivefold ministry characteristic: apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher.  It was in a format that I relish….check each statement, each characteristic as either Strong, Moderate or Weak.  And I did.  50 questions.  About 1 1/2 hours (In my teacher land, that’s quality time given.  We plan on students taking/needing about 1.2 minutes per multiple choice question!)

Upon completion, the prayerfully led suggestion that I had been given by our church was, no surprise – the one I scored highest on:  Teacher.  I teach.  Made sense to me.

Evangelist was my lowest score.  And that also made sense.  A lot of sense.  My coming to believe was late in life.  Fought bitterly by my science sensibilities.  Backed up by a shutting down of heart and head anytime I witness, participate in, am exposed to ‘organized religion’ and it’s accompanying man-made rules and judgments.  (Yes, I am fully aware of the accompanying judgment that the previous sentence lays out on the table.  But one topic at a time, please.)

But what made me stop and (finally) think, was a comment back from Shannon when I shared with my life group (life-line is a better description).  She had me look back at three different questions on the form — specific to evangelist — and reminded me of a variety of instances where I HAD been strong, and yet listed myself as weak.

My writing prompt today comes from ‘Even God Grows’ by Jason Upton, in Vol. 4 Creativity Unlocked, Cultivate.

What have I become?  He asks.  Allow Jesus to begin to show you the distinct peculiarities that make your life so beautiful.

Key word.  Jesus.

I reviewed that ministry piece with MY eyes.  With my inadequacies, false humility and a desire to be useful, different and unique.  I also reviewed with fear.  Fear of the changes that I feel in my heart and head.  But especially the fear of anyone else knowing about those changes.

Because I do not….know.  I am unsure in this realm.  I believe I am taking a journey without the ‘appropriate’ preparation, training, learning behind it.

My Steve can tell you that I live my life as a prey animal.  Cautiously guarding any frailty close to my heart.  I stand on MY strength.  MY ability.  I struggle against weakness.  Of any kind.

But from that same writing prompt – I read this:  We are not alive because we are perfect.  We are alive because we are growing.  The greatest enemy of our lives is not failure, or falling, or losing.  The greatest enemy of our lives is thinking we have arrived.

I’m going to go back through that score sheet with assistance from that place in my heart that leads me in the right directions.  I may still be Teacher in my giftings, but I’m pretty sure there are some other pieces that will change when I look through a different set of eyes.  AND…..I will begin to write out the distinct peculiarities that make my life so beautiful.

 

06 Mar This entry was published on March 6, 2018 at 3:10 pm. It’s filed under God thoughts, Learning, Science, Thought and tagged connections, God, Holy Spirit, Joy, Learning, why. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.