FEELING INADEQUATE?

I love the old comic strip depicting Lucy, Charlie Brown and Linus lying in a field, looking up at the bright white clouds in an azure blue sky. Lucy asks Linus, “what do you see?”

Linus replies, “That cloud looks like a profile of Beethoven. Those clouds look like an outline of the blue Azores. And those clouds remind me of Saul of Tarsus holding the cloak of Stephen as he was being stoned.”

Then Lucy turns to Charlie Brown and asks, “And Charlie Brown, what do you see?”
And Charlie Brown says, “I was going to say I saw a ducky and a doggy . . . but I've changed my mind."

THE FEAR OF FAILURE HAUNTS US ALL.

Most Christian church members know the story of Moses pretty well. Pharaoh’s daughter rescued baby Moses from the river. She happened to be a banker and went down to the river and drew out a little prophet. (Yes, I know it’s bad…)

You can start with Exodus 2:10 and read the whole story about Moses. He was the most important person in the long history of Israel. In the New Testament Jesus took Peter, James and John up to a mountaintop where he was transfigured before them. Two people came down from heaven to talk with Jesus about his coming suffering and crucifixion. Moses and Elijah. From excuses to astonishing competence – that was the life of Moses. Moses is quoted Eighty times in the New Testament.

Yet when God called him to lead he gave more excuses than a dog has fleas. Talk about the lack of self-confidence…. Moses was pathetic. He started with not being young enough (he was 80 years old) and worked down from there.

God said: “Moses, your physical capabilities and your handicaps are my doing. Your limitations are my problem I’ll take care of them. Don’t plead inadequacy as an excuse for disobedience.”

This has been proven over and over again in history. People, in spite of handicaps and in spite of adversity, have accomplished far more than humanly speaking we thought they could.

Take Beethoven, for example. He was totally deaf during the last 8 years of his life but it was during that tragic period that he wrote his Ninth Symphony, often acclaimed as his greatest musical work. Yet, he never heard it.

A horribly deformed dwarf-like cripple named Charles Steinbeck became one of the outstanding electrical geniuses of all time. He held patents on over 100 inventions, and he did this during his tenure as a consulting engineer with the General Electric Company. This pitiful little man did most of his work half standing and half leaning on a stool. An indomitable will guided him to accomplishments seldom matched by others in perfect health.

Or consider John Milton, one of England’s greatest poets. He wrote his magnificent epic, Paradise Lost, after some 10 or 12 years of total blindness. Through a spirit of determination seldom equaled in the annals of literature, he was able to turn tragedy into triumph. His well-known sonnet on his blindness illustrates his feeling of responsibility toward God who made him, and endowed him with such magnificent genius:

We couldn’t and shouldn’t try to do things we were not called to do. However, if we know that God is calling us to do more than we ever dreamed possible then we must allow him to make it happen.

How human it is to make excuses. Excuses are evidence of unbelief. For if we truly believed God has called us to greater things then we need to step forward and salute our Command-in-Chief, and say, Yes Sir! What’s next?

WHAT'S IN YOUR HAND MOSES? (Exo 4:2-7 NIV)

“Then the LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff,” he replied. {3} The LORD said, “Throw it on the ground.” Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. {4} Then the LORD said to him, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.” So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand.

{5} “This,” said the LORD, “is so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.” {6} Then the LORD said, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was leprous, like snow. {7} “Now put it back into your cloak,” he said. So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his flesh.”

Are you a housewife and a mother? You’ve got pots and pans and children created in the image of God. If you are a nurse you’ve got a thermometer, or a syringe, or a Bedpan. If you are a secretary, you’ve got a pencil, a steno pad, and a computer keyboard. Are you a physician? You’ve got a stethoscope, or an X-ray, or a Scalpel.
Are you a teacher? You’ve got a textbook, and some chalk, and a wall full of charts, and a head full of knowledge, and a room full of children waiting to blossom like flowers. Are you a businessman? You’ve got management skills, and financial acumen, and commercial opportunity.

However if God calls you to be more than you ever dreamed you could be then you must obey. God is not looking for experts. God is not looking for supermen and super-women. God is not looking for uncommonly strong and resourceful people. God is looking for people who will take what they have in their hands and put it at his disposal.

How about using what you have to do more than you ever dreamed you could do?