I process better when I write. This is what I am thinking about this morning.
I get asked a lot about the content of my Poetry and the weight of its delivery. I get the same response when I speak or teach. People often ask me how I write or speak like I do. For me it comes completely natural and just seems normal. Its me walking completely and unapologetic in who I am and sharing it with others.
I have been thinking about this for the last couple of days. Thinking about when I have been most affective and flow more freely. I noticed it is when I give what I have obtain through the years. It is when I offer what I have gained through experience, trial or perseverance. It has become a grace purchased through pain and/or trial.
God uses what we have gone through. He uses the mess of it all, the lessons in it to grow us and those around us. I think about David before he was a king he tending sheep. I think about the heart he had to have to fight the lion and the bear to save a sheep. It was in that time of shepherding he was learning what it is to oversee a nation. The same with Joseph it was serving Potipher that he learned to rule a household which prepared him to lead a nation.
It is through these experiences that a grace comes that differs from a talent. A grace that came with experience. It carries a weight. A weight we sometimes call anointed. Anointed as in the Holy Spirit/ Oil on something or someone.
Sometimes in the midst of trial it is hard to see what God is doing. We can become so overwhelmed with what we are going through that we loose sight of the fact that God is still at work. Even in what seem to be a pit or slavery that God can use what we experience to bring us into a fulfilled promise. He can use a prison sentence to position you to save nations.
Sometimes we are so ashamed of what we have done and what we have been that we don’t reach our full potential. I hear it said a lot the thing that we want to hide is the thing that God wants to use. There is a story in the bible that sticks out to me.
Jesus is in the temple and there is a man there who had a withered hand. Jesus told the man to stretch out his hand. The man had a choice in the moment of invitation from Jesus. He could have stretched out his good hand. The hand that looked normal and like everyone else or he could stretch out the hand that had the issue. The wounded withered hand. The one that he struggled with from day to day. The hand that hindered him from doing what others did daily.
The bible says that the man stretched out his withered hand and Jesus healed it. It goes on to say that the Pharisees were angry at Jesus and Jesus used that moment to teach. What if that was all we had to do for God to use us. All we had to do is stretch out the thing we want to cover up. Stretch out the pain we encountered as children, the trials that we endured and allow Jesus to heal it and use it.
I decided a long time ago to stretch out my place of wounds and pain. To show it and allow God to heal it and use. My poetry and talks are just me stretching out the pain and wounds I have endured or experienced. Its not that I am just so talented but that God uses our brokenness. He chooses to use the stretching out of a withered hand to teach and to heal.
We often think we have nothing to offer. I think this of my self often. Then God reminds me of people like Mary, the mother of Jesus. She was not gifted or talented but she was willing to be used. Through her willingness God brought forth Salvation. Gideon a man thought to be a punk hiding out God used his to defeat an army. Rahab a prostitute who hid some guys and ended up in the lineage of Christ. God used people who it seemed had nothing to offer to deliver others.
So I encourage you today. Stretch what you want to hide. Extend to Jesus you withered place, your pain and your brokenness. Allow him to use what you have called useless. Its when you have nothing to offer that God sees the potential to use everything you are.
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