A
thought by Steven Furtick, (2016-03-01) from his book, (UN)Qualified: How God Uses Broken People to Do Big Things (p.
102). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title of the book
to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)
Would you
like someone to say that about you?
Steven
tells the story behind those words. He said, “Recently I tried to learn tennis
as a hobby. I was pretty nervous when I went for my first lesson, and the first
thing the instructor said didn’t help. ‘All right, let’s see what I’ve got to
work with. What do you know?’ I told him I had no idea what I was doing. He
said that was just the way he liked it, which confused me. He explained how
people come all the time knowing just enough tennis to make them impossible to
coach. They don’t want to trust a new way because they are used to their way.
And they try to show the coach how much they know instead of learning what he
has to teach them. ‘You’re my favorite kind of person to work with,’ he said.”
Steven
then said, “I wonder if God’s favorite kind of person to work with is the one
who says, ‘God, I have no idea what I’m doing here. But if you’ll show me what
you know about me, about life, about relationships, about my career, about my
decisions, I’ll do it.’”
He
goes on, “Pride is the barrier that keeps us from receiving strength in our
weakness. Sometimes you may find yourself embarrassed to ask others, or even
God, for help. You may feel that you should be more mature by now, more
capable. You know that God has called you to accomplish certain things, but the
fact that your weaknesses keep getting in the way is humiliating. Maybe God is
running out of patience with me, you think. After all, I’m certainly out of
patience with myself.”
But
then he says, “God is not out of patience. And he probably has a significantly
different assessment of yourself than you do.”
And
here is the key, “But in order to receive his help, we have to admit we need
it. We have to take our weaknesses to God in faith, without self-condemnation
or despair or shame.”
So
why don’t you do that today?
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