Useful...

Recently I lost my job. It was a job I thoroughly enjoyed and a job I thought I was pretty good at. Because it was at a church, it was also a job where I felt “used by God” in a very tangible way on a regular basis.

Now that it’s gone, there are a couple of dangerous thought processes that have been offering themselves to me.

The first one is the thought that I need to be “used by God” in order to feel worthwhile, secure, fulfilled, competent, and accomplished. Now, I realize that some of you might think that sounds crazy, but I’m guessing there are plenty of others who know exactly what I’m talking about.

It’s almost like we consider it our right to be used by God, when what's really needed is for us to simply be ready to be used. There’s a bigger difference between those ideas than we realize, and the difference points to a much larger idea: who's story are we focusing on, ours or God's? If the goal is for God to do what He wants to do, when He wants to do it, and how He wants to do it, what difference is it to us if we're the ones He does it through? When we get hung up on that, it proves that our egos are involved.

The second dangerous thought is that “being in ministry” is a more worthwhile form of being used than all of the other ways God uses so many of His children every day.

The truth is, God needs all kinds of people in all kinds of places, but there’s a catch: HE NEEDS US TO BE AVAILABLE, NOT JUST THERE FOR THE SAKE OF BEING THERE.

For me it's useful to think of myself as one of the tools on God's workbench: He uses me to accomplish HIS work. I'm not the only tool available, and I might not get used all the time, but when He needs me I'd better be ready. It's also a good idea for me to focus on being what I'm supposed to be rather than trying to be something I'm not. For example, it's way better to have a great hammer than a chisel trying to pretend it's a hammer. Sure you can hold it by the blade and hit things with the handle, but it's nothing like having an actual hammer. That might sound ridiculous, but how many times have you seen that scenario play out with people operating outside of their giftings? It's not pretty, and it's often born of either a desperation to be used or a desperation to be used in a way different than what God designed them for.

I've got to remember that it's His work and His story, not mine

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