Equipped for the Task at Hand

So a day after i said I was going to take a break from the blog I was reading a portion of Five Minutes with Jesus: Peace for Today by Sheila Walsh and discovered this awesome chapter that I very much felt needed to be shared with others.  So without further ado:

Equipped for the Task at Hand

Elizabeth was born a slave.  At the age of eleven, she was taken from her family and sent to a plantation far away.  Utterly grief-stricken, she wept constantly and even stopped eating.  One night she grew so weak that she was sure she would die.  She hardly knew how to pray, but as she cried out to God, a figure cloaked in a brilliant white garment appeared before her.  And God placed His call on the most unlikely of servants in Pre-Civil War America: a young slave girl.  

Elizabeth became a powerful Evangelist who preached against the evils of slavery to both black and white congregations.  On paper, she was terribly ill-equipped for the task: she had no education; she was a woman in a man's world: and she was black during a time when people of color had no voice.  Of course she met doubt and resistance everywhere she went.  

  

  But she knew where to go to be equipped for the task to which her Lord had called her: Elizabeth took her needs to Jesus.  

  This truth could have helped Israel's first king before he was ever crowned.  When Saul learned about God's plan for him, he realized the calling was too big: foreign enemies pressed in on Israel's borders; tribes were scheming and jealous; and people had crazy high expectations for the nation's very first king.  So when the time for his coronation rrived and the announcement rang, the trumpets blasted, and ...... no Saul.

  So they started looking for the king, and they found him -- but only after the Lord told them, "He is hiding among the baggage."  1 Samuel  10:22

  Saul had considered the job description, sized up his own character, and found himself not up to the task.  

  Saul didn't know that when that happens-- when we find ourselves at the end of our own wisdom, courage, and strength-- we have only one option: we must lay our inadequacies before the throne of God and allow him to do his work through us.  

  When we do, we experience the peace that enables us to crawl out of hiding and into God's purpose for our lives.  

  We serve God well when, in our weakness, we turn to him for wisdom, courage and strength.  

From the end of the earth I will cry to you, when my heart is overwhelmed; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.  Psalm 61:2

Have you not known?  Have you not heard?  The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.  Isaiah 40:28

The Lord is my strength and shield.  I will trust him with all my heart.  He helps me, and my heart is filled with joy.  I burst out in songs of thanksgiving.  Psalm 28:7

"I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me.  Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows.  But take heart, because I have overcome the world."  John 16:33