Getting back to it

Whoops. Definitely did not mean to take such a long break in my storytelling. Oh well, I'm back. This entry will be the last piece of the background, and then we'll actually get to the retreat itself.

Back in the beginning of December, my pastor put out a call to the church for people to contribute devotional writings on the theme "Breaking Free" for a book that we will use as a church for the 40 days of Lent. I'm not generally a fan of packaged devotional programs, but I have to say, I thought having a devotional that was created entirely from the church body was one of the coolest ideas ever, and being a writer, I quickly said yes. The due date for the entries was the Sunday of the retreat. I procrastinated for the first month, and then after the new year, was geninuely trying to get the thing written, but coming up blank on inspiration, until the day before we left for the retreat, when God led me to John 14:12 and I wrote the following:

“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” – John 14:12

At first glance, you may wonder what connection that verse has with the theme of breaking free. Allow me to explain: For me, the transformational reality of my recent life has been my ability to break free from the prison of my own low expectations.

You see, for me, it was always very easy to believe that God was capable of doing incredible things, even beyond all I could ask or imagine, as we’re told in Ephesians. Where it broke down for me was in my willingness to believe that God could use me to do those things. I resigned myself to a fairly trivial experience in terms of my relationship with God, and you could see that in the way I spoke about myself, both to myself and to others – “I’m not really someone who hears from God.” “I’m not an intercessor.” “I’m not…” – you get the picture. And, of course, I was right – not because that was the way things had to be, but because it was how I expected them to be. These were all self-fulfilling prophecies that limited the extent to which God could work in my life. God couldn’t speak to me, because since I didn’t expect to hear from Him, I didn’t listen. God couldn’t use me as an intercessor, because since I didn’t think I could do it, I didn’t try. The list goes on, but I’m working within a space limit here so I’ll leave it at that. Suffice to say I wasn’t really buying the notion that God could do the same things, and even greater, things through me that Jesus did.

However, the thing that jumps off the page to me about this verse is that Jesus gives no disclaimers or qualifications – it very clearly applies to anyone who has faith in Him. Guess what? I’m anyone! And so are you. The question is, do we believe it, and more importantly, do we live like we believe it? When we seek Him, do we expect to find Him? When we pray, do we expect to see answers? When we listen, do we expect Him to speak? Do we expect God to do great things through us?

Our honest answers to these questions will largely define the extent to which God is able to work in us and through us. As I’ve been able to truthfully answer “Yes” to more of those questions in my own life, I’ve begun to find Him more, see more answers, hear Him more, and so forth. It’s funny how that works, isn’t it?


PS: As a side story, apparently not everyone fulfilled their commitments to write, and we wound up short of 40 entries, so at my pastor's request, I'm now on the hook to write the devotional for Easter Sunday. No pressure there, right? :-)