Useful

Useful- serviceable for an end or purpose. Isn't that what we should long to be? Should there be anything higher on our prayer list for ourselves than to be a useful vessel for The King? No matter how great, powerful or famous we could be, if we are not useful we are no good.

I have a friend who is seemingly close to going Home. There could be a "miracle healing", but is that the best way to pray? What is best is for God to use us as He wills and for us to rejoice in being used in some way, whatever He sees best. He sees so much farther down the road than we do and it is so fun to watch Him take all these things and work them out for our good and His glory. It really is amazing when we can look back through our days, weeks and years if we are looking for His hand we can see Him work out so many details.

I often want to go in a direction that is not where He wants me to go. I have an idea, maybe have even prayed about it, and am going to go and do this thing and yet He has a much better plan for me. "How can He use me to my fullest capacity in this situation?" "How can this be the best use of my time when this is not how I am gifted?" These kinds of questions create doubt that God really does know what He is doing in my life. But when I just watch Him take all these things and use them to shape me into what He would have me to be, then I can finally start to see where He is going to use me. He not only shapes us as He wills, but then He gives us the work to do, that perfectly fits how He shaped us.

So please pray that we would be useful to His Kingdom, in whatever place and capacity that is. As we prepare to go to Ethiopia, in less than 2 weeks, I have no idea what He is going to do, but I really don't care; I just want Him to open my eyes and heart to what He wants and then for Him to use us as He wills for His purpose. He has some crazy plan that perfectly fits how He has created Teresa and I and He knows exactly what it is. This is when it should start to get fun; watching Him take all the years of shaping and see how He has knitted Teresa and I together into the fabric that is needed in whatever way He sees best.

I want to be used by Him, for whatever purpose He sees best, because I know that when He works all these things together the picture is much nicer than if I had the brush for even a minute. It is easy to want to grab it and paint away, but this is when the painting gets messed up.

Please pray that we could be a blessing to those in Ethiopia, to those we meet in the airports along the way, to those who are back here praying. Pray that God would be honored in our service to Him. This could be a new chapter in our lives and it could be just a short little paragraph; I really have no idea what to think, but He knows and that is what is most important.