Faithful Servant

There is nothing I want more than to be a faithful servant of the almighty Savior.  But I know that there are times that I fall short.  For whatever reason, my own insecurities, my busyness, my laziness, or whatever other reason I can come up with, I fall short.

Let me be completely honest:  this has been a long, tough summer.  There have been things that I have faced this summer that I have never dealt with. But, do you know God has grown me.  I have had to be totally dependent on Him to do what needed to be done instead of what I wanted to see happen.

This morning I was contemplating my life (I do this often) and wondering about the times that I know I was not faithful.  I sought out an answer as to what the cause was:  why was I not faithful to things I knew God had called me to?  I finally came to the conclusion that it was all because of my motivation in doing things.  I began to question: was my motivation pure?  So I texted a friend and the thing that she kept talking about was my "secret life,"  you know, the life no one sees.  The life where I know and God knows if I am truly living out what I say I believe. Am I devoted to my time with God?  What does my prayer life look like? Do I devote time to studying God's Word? All of those questions and more talking about my "secret life."  I will be the first to tell you that these are not nearly at the level I would like for them to be at but I can also tell you that I so enjoy spending time with Christ, no matter if it is reading His Word or praying or singing praise music and so, yes, these things are part of my daily time.  So what was it that was keeping me from going all in?  Finally, it hit me:  fear.  Fear of other people judging my motivation.  Fear of the unknown. Fear of not doing something well enough. Fear of being wrong. Fear of letting others down.

And then.....I started reading Callie her devotional for the day and guess what it was about.....
'well done, my good and faithful servant."  I about cried. Here I was allowing fear to rob me of using the talents and abilities that God had given me. I felt the conviction from my seven year old's devotional and yet you know what else I felt, the hope. The hope that I could put that fear behind me and not let it be my guide.

So, here I am thinking about what God is leading me to do with this renewed sense of doing what I should be doing.  Here is what I can tell you:  I am not perfect, my home is not perfect, my kids are not perfect, my life is messy, I am forgetful, I am flawed, but....I am willing to be used by God.