Not About Me!

I am a decent and kind person and for many years what people saw was ME.

"Oh Lisa, you are so amazing. You are so good with kids. You are so positive. You are so giving. You are so good. " And while deep down I knew the real truth of who I was apart from Christ, I seldom gave credit where credit was due. For many years, people saw me, not Jesus within me. A dear friend passed this quote by Arthur Custance and it had a profound impact in the way I looked at myself and God's purposes for my life. He says,

"It often happens that a man (woman) who has a certain natural ability and is filled with high ideals and is known for his (her) good works, will, when he (she) is converted, become for a season a far less admirable and effective individual. The good old man is slowly undermined because it is good only in an accidental way. This form of natural goodness has to be replaced by a supernatural goodness. It is the work of special Grace to convert natural goodness, which is counterfeit in the sight of God, into supernatural goodness that is genuine because the motivation has been freed from the bondage of sin, and brought into conformity to the will of God (Romans 6:18). In a real sense, all goodness in the natural man is simple self-indulgence."

Wow! I thougth about that quote for days. This began a long process of understanding what God was up to in my life and faith during that time as I looked at some of the very difficult circumstances I found myself in. Our move out of the Bay Area up to Sacramento was God's time to begin the stripping process of what I had relied so much on for all those years. Natural goodness! Through a series of trials and personal events; Without a home church, rejection from people, no ministry to serve in, my husband lost his job, no family to have help us with our 3 kids under 3 at that time, and post-partum depression. I saw everything that had defined me for so many years taken away. And it was in my vulnerability and self awareness that God graciously began to teach me that my sole purpose for serving people was to draw people to God not to Lisa.

I encourage you to think about this quote and reflect on the following questions:

1. When others look into your life, who do you want them to see?
2. What gets in the way of others seeing God's supernatural work in you life?
3. Can you begin to look at those things that have defined you throughout your life possibly competing with the ways Jesus want to define who you are?

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Corinthians 12:9-1

Divine Appointments

I am so thankful that my life is not built upon good luck and random coincidences.

That behind every event and season of my life is a God at work, orchestrating His divine details exactly suited for me. Every day there are missed opportunities to see the ways God is working. He is always eager to show us His plan, if we dare take the time to seek Him in all of the spaces and places of our lives. I have so many God stories and by the end of my life, my prayer would be that my entire life story is a legacy I can leave behind where God is the one who shines through as the author and creator of my life rather than me! 

Writing Bible studies for women is the last thing I would have imagined myself doing at this stage of my life. Clearly all efforts of my works are a work of His Spirit giving me the desire and the wisdom to work outside of my comfort level and use the gifts God has given me. Consequently, this has produced a lot of insecurity within me. Almost daily I am putting my fears and insecurities before God. It is a vulnerable thing to display your heart on pages others are reading and may be critical of. Oh, the impossible things God wants to do in our lives! 

A few years, I was working on a Hebrews Faith Journey Study in the café at my church while my kids were in youth group. On this particular evening, I happened to catch this beautiful middle aged woman working on her Beth Moore study. She had her Bible and workbook out and was so engaged in her time with God. It was awesome to watch the Spirit at work in her heart. 

I strained my neck to look at Beth’s study and saw pages and pages of her gracious, well thought, and theologically grounded writing. I looked at my Hebrews Study and thought to myself, “Really Lisa, you think you are a writer and that women will be interested in your study?” Instantly, my countenance changed and the enemy began to wreak havoc in my mind. “Quit now. You don’t have time for this. Just use the studies already out there.” How does the enemy mess with you when it comes to those assignments you clearly didn’t sign up for? I am convinced the ones we choose for ourselves, the enemy is not as busy to discourage and mess with us as those God sized assignments.

Defeated and discouraged I packed my bags and began to leave. As I brushed past her table, I caught out of the corner of my eye, a woman sitting at another table with her Bible and was flipping through her study. To my surprise, it happened to be a Faith Journey Bible Study on the Book of Ephesians. I did not know this woman and assumed she was in a group led by two dear friends of mine. Immediately, tears filled my eyes and I knew this was a divine appointment by the Lord to bring some clarity and to affirm what He wanted me to continue pursuing with Him. As I looked up into the moon lit sky, He affirmed the unique voice He has given me to write Bible Studies. In His economy, He needs all of us to raise our voices and not grow weary or defeated because we are not as loud as others, as mature as others, as spiritual as others. He only wants our availability. I told the Lord that night that I would continue to be available for Him to speak through me in writing Bible studies, teaching, and encouraging other Faith Journey Groups to get started until He called me elsewhere.

Having two women sitting side by side at a church café working on two different Bible studies may not appear divine to most people observing. However, for me it was. God used an ordinary circumstance to teach me something extraordinary about Him. It’s not that He needs me to write Bible Studies, He wants me to need Him and allow His grace to flow through me completely! Where do you see God calling you to do the impossible? Is it really about YOU and what you can or cannot do or about God and who He wants to use to bring glory to His Name?

Isaiah 43:1-7 says,

But now, thus says the Lord, your creator, O Jacob, and He who formed you, O Israel, "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine! When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, nor will the flame burn you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I have given Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in your place. Since you are precious in My sight, since you are honored and I love you, I will give other men in your place and other peoples in exchange for your life. Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, 'Give them up!' and to the south, 'Do not hold them back.' Bring My sons from afar, and My daughters from the ends of the earth, everyone who is called by My name, and whom I have created for My glory, whom I have formed even whom I have made" (NASB).