Since I came back to the Lord in my early twenties I have been passionate about reaching people with messages of hope and healing and I love to evangelize whenever possible. But early in the process of working out my old religious mindset and discovering the truth of God’s word I hit a wall! I was so bent on teaching others what I was learning and so enthusiastic in sharing that I was missing out on what God was trying to do in me. We had a single mom and her son living with us who had come out of the Catholic church and had many things that confused her about what she was taught growing up and what I shared with her.
Oh how I wanted her to see the light and to learn the truth and I took every opportunity to share with her or teach her. I had the right heart but my presentation was off kilter. One day she came to me and said, “Holly I love that you care so much for me that you want to help me understand God’s Word but I believe God is wanting you to take a step back and learn to live it more than speak it.” She said, “You teach me so much just in the way you hold my son and comfort him and in the way you love others and your example is even greater than your verbal testimony.”
Then she said something that I remind myself of to this day but I have to tell you that at the time it floored me and offended me. She said, “Holly let the Holy Spirit do the work in you first and then when you share your life has evidence to back up what you teach. Right now it is more like the Holly spicket that just flows with head knowledge but God wants it to be heart knowledge for you first.” “You are enough and don’t have anything to prove. God is going to use you but let Him work in you first then others will listen and lives will change when you speak.”
Let me tell you that hard truth spoke in love by a friend changed my life forever! I didn’t like what she said! I didn’t want to receive what she said! But I couldn’t escape what she said and it gnawed at me during the months following that conversation because she was right! I had known since childhood that I would one day be a minister of the Gospel and when I came back to the Lord I wanted it to manifest instantly because I felt so bad for the years I wasted living in the world and fulfilling the lust of the flesh. I wanted to be used by God and I wanted to serve Him each and every day and I wanted to see lives transformed and healed. But God wanted something different! While He wanted me to serve Him and minister His truth to His people, He didn’t need me to do it right then! His greater desire was for me to receive His precious gift of healing for myself and then allow His Spirit to work through me to minister that to others and to lead them to the One who could deliver them.
I love the story of Moses because he forced appointed time just like I was doing and it was a disaster. But during his time in the desert after killing the Egyptian he allowed God to work in him and then God used him to deliver His people. Just in case you don’t know the story here is what Exodus 2:11-12 says, “Now it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out to his brethren and looked at their burdens. And he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren. So he looked this way and that way, and when he saw no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.” Moses had the right heart for God's people but instigated the wrong actions because He chose to work for God to try and deliver the people before God worked in Him and placed him in the position of being the deliverer. At first Moses ran but then at some point He allowed God to work in Him, then speak to him, and then send him back. And because Moses obeyed the real work that God had for him to do was fulfilled!
This is what I learned from that conversation from my friend that day. I have spent years allowing God to work in me. While I still encouraged, built up, and strengthened others during those years I made becoming who God created me to be the focus. Now as God is placing me in the assigned position of being a deliverer through our church plant and resource center in St. Louis, His real work for His people can be done through me and it will be fulfilled. But I can guarantee you that if I had not learned this very hard lesson I would have killed many soldiers in the army of God with judgment, offense, and every other act of the flesh you can think of.
Now my responsibility is to keep allowing God to work in me first and staying in a mindset of humility and never taking on pride, which is another, devotional all together. This is why it is so important to allow God to work in us first before we do His work. He has an assignment for each of us, but only those who follow His order in this will see that assignment fulfilled the way He designed it to be. This is my encouragement to you as you witness injustice being done to those around you. God wants to do an inner working in you and then He wants to use you to be a deliverer. Allow Him to do it and you will be so overjoyed when He tells you it is time that you won’t know how to contain it! Your joy will be so infectious that others will want what you have to and you can lead them to the secret place of being still before the Lord and the beauty of His work in the heart of the believer.
Prayer: Oh lord I want to serve You more than anything but I know that You want to give me the precious gift of Your inner working in my heart first. Help me to keep my feet firmly planted until it is time for my appointed assignment to be fulfilled. Teach me Your ways that can I can walk in Your truth. Help me to accept and keep my appointment with You so I can later fulfill your assignment for me and for Your people. Amen
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