You Are Capable – With God
If you’re like me, sometimes you think you’re a little useless or ill equipped to serve God. Or sometimes you compare yourself to others and think there is no way you can serve him in your current context… so why try? Upon reflection I see that this puts pressure on yourself that can paralyse you to serve God. I hope the three illustrations below encourage you, as they did me, to see that our context doesn’t matter, who we rely on does.
You are a Glove
Corrie Ten Boom – a woman who faithfully served God to save many Jewish people in the Netherlands during World War II, and who continued to serve him faithfully thereafter – is a woman I will always be inspired by. When I think I am not capable of serving God in my current context her story (which I read in ‘The Hiding Place’) reminds me that I can.
There is a video I saw of Corrie where she holds a plastic glove and says, with her beautifully thick Dutch accent, “it cannot write, it cannot cook, it cannot do anything but when my hand is in the glove it can write, it can cook, it can do many things.” She then goes on to say that it’s not the glove doing the things, it is the hand. We are like the glove and God the hand. With His Spirit in us, we can do many things. I watch that video when I’m feeling a little useless to remind myself that it is important to serve with God guiding us and not apart from him. Corrie then goes on to reference John 15, which brings us to the next illustration.
You are a Branch
Jesus – the Son of God who came to save us from eternal suffering (separation from God). He came from heaven to earth, lived an obedient life, died on a cross to take our punishment and pay our debt so we can live eternally with God – is something I will always be grateful for!
In John 15:4-5 Jesus says: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
Without being grafted to Jesus we will not bear fruit. As we faithfully align ourselves with Jesus we can bring glory to God in our current context, whatever that may be.
You are a Potato
A person on the internet – who I have no background information on – made a meme that made me laugh and then made me curl into a ball and reflect very deeply on my limited view of God’s abilities to use me.
Think of all the ways you have seen a potato cooked: roast potato, boiled potato, jacket potato, mashed potato, potato gems, potato fries, potato chips, potato salad, baked potato, potato scallions, spiral potatoes etc. Now reflect on this sentence: “if you can do all this with a potato, think of all God can do with you.” Simple yet profound, I think!
No matter where you are in life, I pray that you are encouraged to faithfully stand firm in Christ and know that you are capable of more than you can imagine as His glove, branch or potato.
Marianka Sadie
