.png)
I received a note last week on Instagram from a kind woman who heard me speak at her church last year. I taught on Building Authentic Relationships and I remember at her church in particular I was incredibly nervous to lay it all out there because I so often get it wrong. Am I fake? Am I genuine? Am I humble? Who in the world am I to be on a platform talking about anything, let alone friendship.
But this was her message : “You were our best speaker and it was our best topic.”
Wow.
As I gear up to speak more this week than I have total this year, I felt divine encouragement wash over my heart. The enemy is coming hard after me with lies of “never being worthy” to teach, and “you’ve got nothing to say”. He is pressing in deep where he knows I’m most vulnerable. But it’s when I hear from women like this that I know God has something planned. Not so much for me, but for YOU. God has a word and it isn’t about me, it isn’t my words, and it certainly isn’t my wisdom that encourages - it’s HIS. I am just a small, nothing little vessel that has held my hands open for God to come in and use.
Five years ago, I would never have said yes to using a microphone in a closet, let alone on a stage. I would never have said yes to guesting on a podcast. I would never have written so vulnerably on a blog. I would never have led a neighborhood bible study. And I certainly would never have stood in front of a podium and spilled my guts about struggling through friendship. But here I am. Not because of me, but because of Jesus.
Wherever you are today, could I encourage you from the bottom of my heart to yours - be obedient. Whatever He’s calling you to do, wherever He’s calling you to go, trust God and go there. Go and do. Go and tell. Go and serve. His plan is mightier and better and every small act of obedience speaks volumes of blessing over our lives.
The opening of doors doesn’t always look how we think it should and God’s timing is rarely our own. And the obedience might seem small to you, but I promise it’s not. When God trusts us with assignments in the small, He trusts us with assignments in the big. So build up that repertoire of daily surrender. He is ever faithful, friend, and will continue to be until the end of time.