Tuesday, June 3, 2014

All of Me?

"Here I am, Lord.  Send me!"

I have shouted those words over and over in my heart.  Missionaries come to share what they are doing out there in the world of the lost, and I beg God to send me.

Teens with such awesome faith travel to foreign lands and come home to share it with me.  And I beg God, "Please!  Send me!"

Then in His own time, in that still small voice, He shakes His head and says, "Not this time."

Have you ever wanted to serve God so fully that you shout to Him to use you, but He quietly refuses.  Or so it seems.

I have always believed Isaiah 40:31.

"Those who wait upon the LORD
Will gain new strength;
They will mount up with wings like eagles,
They will run and not get tired,
They will walk and not become weary."

I have believed these precious words.  I have waited.  And waited.  And waited.

But I have not waited unproductively.  I once heard a lesson on this waiting, that it is an anxious-for-the- arrival kind of waiting.  A running to the window every few seconds to see if it (they) have arrived.  Like waiting for company.

And that is the definition of the word waiting here in Isaiah 40:31.  The Hebrew word is qavah.  And the definition of it is "to wait, look for, hope, expect" (Stong's).

I know this kind of waiting.  Whenever guests are expected at our home, I clean and cook and clean some more.  I pace, I sit, I check the driveway.  Impatience personified.

I would be in trouble if the verse said to wait patiently for the Lord.  Patience.  Not so much.

One year ago I felt a tugging at my heart about my "service" to the Lord.  He was saying it was time to stop striving, to stop doing for Him, and just wait.  So I, more like we, hubby and I, resigned from youth work and began a period of waiting.

Again, remember, I am not good at patience.  But He kept reminding me that it is not my service He wanted, but me.


I figured okay I'll pray and wait and wonder.  In the mean time, I better have my foot looked at since I could no longer walk a block without pain.  I figured it was some type of strain and that I needed different walking shoes.

X-rays revealed nothing.  Confining my foot in one of those bulky, ortho, walking boots was my next step.

Okay.  I'm waiting.  Guess I can limp around in that.  

Ortho boots are not easy to get on and off, and since it was my right foot, that is exactly what I had to do if I wanted to drive anywhere alone.

Guess what?  I decided not to run errands during the week.  It was so much easier to stay put.

So I waited.  And waited.  6 weeks turned into 8 by the time I got an MRI (because the boot didn't help!).  Patience wearing very thin as the holidays came.  Passed.

Then the results of all the waiting.  A torn tendon in my foot.  Treatment:  surgery.

Now, I'm not new to surgery.  I've had a number of them, mostly simple, 2 rather intense.  And I know my body, the one with fibromyalgia.  The one that does not handle pain well.

Surgery.  This is not the type of service I had had in mind when I said, "Here I am, Lord.  Send me!"  I had meant, here I am, healthy and strong and raring to go and move mountains for You!  

And He is saying, "All of you?  You give me all of you?"  yes.  "Then this is what I'm calling for now."

So I wait.  I wait for the date of the surgery.  I wait to deal with crutches and some scooter thingy and pain and not seeing my ggirls as often.

Did I really expect His work for me to be fun and games?  Well, I had come from youth ministry with wild games of chase, over-night laser questing, and motivating summer camps.  Not to mention FOOD!

And now?  

I truly believe that there is no better place to be than in the center of God's will for you.  Someone said that once and I've thought of it often.

So I truly believe that strength will come as I wait.  I'll do the next thing, as Elisabeth Elliot wrote.

And I'll remind God--I'm not much of a patient. 


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