What in the world am I doing?
Or really, the actual burning question is,
What am I doing in the world that serves any purpose in the Kingdom? How do I use my gift to serve...how do I know what my gift is? What if I'm wrong?
Sitting in my snuggery (my craft room) amongst a mess of snippets and strings of yarn, it's all too common I fight thoughts that I am wasting my time on this stuff. Some say I have a gift. I can do thinks with hooks and needles that not too many others can, I know this. But I downplay it quite a bit. After all, anyone can follow a pattern. And
It's a choice I have to make to plow through those thoughts to get any kind of "Made for You" (my rinky-dink, in-progress business idea) work done or get any kind of practice to get better at the actual craft...Most of all, to get any kind of enjoyment out of doing what I like, I must plow with blinders on, ignoring the distracting thoughts. And even when I do plow through and focus on my project, I'm not sure if it's right for me to do it...to spend so much time on something that doesn't have anything to do with the house or my family. It's knowing that I can do something, but not knowing if I really should. It's a guilt that I battle and I am going to have to face if I want to ever see anything on my etsy page, for instance.
Thoughts are powerful. If allowed, they can keep you from working toward your potential with any kind of intentionality, especially when the enemy doesn't want you to use a gift. He'll tell you you can't do it, you shouldn't do it, you're not good at it and there's not enough of you to be all that you might actually be called to be. Satan will use your higher priorities to try to convince you that "homemaker" is all you have room in your life to be and if you try to be anything more, you will fail. Or worse (if your story is similar to mine) that doing anything else is a gateway to who you used to be before you followed Christ and use fear to stop you before you even really begin (I could go on a whole other tangent about THAT). And you'll never know how much use God can get out of you with that gift if you don't shut those thoughts down. Those thoughts are lies, yes...but they have power to you as long as you believe them. You might not really understand how to use your gift to serve God or others yet, but you never will if you don't start using it to see where He can take you.
These are my battles. How swift I am at defeating this daily mind game, maybe my progress will tell. I am determined however, no matter the pace, to overcome the chatter in my mind. But the point, as I am learning in this season of my life, is that it is us who allows the road blocks, the thoughts, the fiery darts of the devil to stop us on our path to using what God has gifted us with.
“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”
1 Peter 4:10 NIV
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