Saturday

Saturday we hosted upwards basketball at our church. Being the minister of youth and recreation means we stay busy especially during upwards basketball season. We partner with 2 other churches so we host every 3 weeks. We always have a lot of fun, but it makes for a long day. We get to the church before 8 and leave after 5. This Saturday was no exception. Its always fun to see familiar faces and hang out with a great recreation committee... aka the other workers who sacrifice their Saturdays for us... all day. If I haven't told you guys before.... thank you thank you thank you! We are so thankful for you and your commitment to help make the recreation ministry better.

One thing that I especially enjoyed about saturday was helping give the devotions. At half time of every game, D gives a small devo. We're talking microphone and lots of people looking and listening. I thought rather than him having to do it 7 times we could alternate. And we did. We realize we have a huge oppotunity to reach some that come to our church for basketball that would never come on a Sunday morning. We want to use every opportunity we have to point them to Jesus.

I began feeling led to mention to d the idea of helping share the devo a week or so prior. Remember I am the behind the scenes, help do whatever, but certainly not the spotlight, everyone look at me... it makes my face red just thinking about it! However, God has been up to something in my life and part of that is to pull me out from behind the scenes into a more vocal position of ministry. SCARY... to say the least.

I should back up and begin by saying when we hosted upwards last month I felt God's prompting to share then, but that was my "running" from God time. How stupid. I was miserable that Friday night and Saturday because of this running. I don't think I ever shared why I was miserable but there you go thats why.. God said share and I said no. So when I felt God's prompting this time... having stopped running and yielded to whatever God was doing I couldn't help but say yes. A quick text to d sealed the deal. I couldn't back out now. He was excited that I wanted to share and because I knew I was helping give him a little break I knew I couldn't retract my offer. I have this need to please people. I know its a terrible people pleasing problem. I don't like to disappoint. But that's a topic for another day.

So....

There it was. I was going to have to hold a microphone and share with a couple hundred people throughout the day. This is where God began to really move. This was when I realized what it means that I am inadequate and He is sufficient. In preparing the devo, I'm pretty sure I wrote it in less than 10 minutes. It was obvious what God wanted me to share... it came from the Mary and Martha post I wrote about a few days ago. God had been convicting me with how much I was like Martha. And what better to share than something that God has been doing in my own life.

Never has 2 Corinthians 12:9 been more real to me.
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Now I'm not saying that I became a perfect speaker with the most eloquent message. Ha. I know it was far from perfect! But I do know that living in fear isn't going to help accomplish anything for the kingdom of God. So I had to surrender my fears, weaknesses, and selfishness and yield to the One who alone is able to take an unworthy sinner, who HATES the spotlight, and use her as an instrument to help point people to Jesus. I have no idea why He chooses to use me, but I am excited to be apart of what He's doing.