Saturday night was a special time at VRC.
It was God's night, and He gave me a gentle reminder that it is still His meeting. A reminder that my plans don't necessarily line up with His from time to time.
I had a message (and a good one I thought) to share. Been working on it and putting the finishing touches to it. A message about going back to the basics of following Jesus. A teaching on what it means to "BELIEVE" in God.
The time was around 5:30 Saturday afternoon.
I was sitting in the room where we hold our meeting, going over my Scripture.
Here is the hard part to explain. As I was reading, the thought and feeling that God did not want me to give this message came over me. I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but twenty years of teaching has caused me not to question or argue when this feeling comes. So I laid my notes and my Bible down and began to pray, asking God, "O.k....if you don't want this message, what do you want me to do?" The reply came to my mind. "WAIT!!".
So 7:00 p.m. came and we kicked off the meeting.
Todd Bagley led worship, and it was good....
One of the songs Todd chose was "GENTLE SHEPHERD."
Chorus is a repetition of the words..."Lead on!"
That was exactly what was going on.
God was leading us. Calling us to place where we did not know what was going to happen, and in the midst of my "What now" moments, God was saying, "Trust me."
Worship finished and it was time to hear from Him.
One of the things that we've started at VRC is what I call "Honest and Transparent" sharing.
Each week, I've asked one of our core leaders to stand and share about the past week...did they have a good week...a hard week. Was there times of struggle, maybe even some doubt or fear. The reason for this type of sharing is that I want those who come on Saturday night to realize that struggle is a part of life. In fact, struggling is going to happen whether you're sober or not. I fear that sometimes the message that recovery meetings give is "Come to Jesus, and all your problems will go away." Not so. I would say, "Come to Jesus and He will empower you to face whatever comes your way."
On this particular night, I'd asked my wife, Vicki, to share.
These "honest and transparent" sharing moments are usually around 5 minutes.
Vicki started her story...
She began by going back a few years. How she'd always been proud of her ability to handle situations. How she could learn and do anything associated with her job. But then she found herself in a place where she was having feelings of being inadequate. Her sister Peggy became sick and Vicki was thrust into the role of taking over Peggy's duties at the office they worked in together. She was reminded over and over through comments that were made to her that she wasn't Peggy. Vicki was doing the best she could, but the best didn't seem good enough. Her mom's health began to deteriorate as dementia began to take over. The feelings of inadequacy began to wash over my wife in an overwhelming way. She was not only completely overwhelmed by her day, but the toll it was taking on her physically and emotionally, not to mention spiritually was beginning to mount up. Due to the things she was having to take care of, she was being isolated from others, which only fueled her sense of inadequacy.
In fact, at last weeks meeting during ministry time, Vicki said, "I need prayer because I'm feeling inadequate at every turn. I don't know who I am any more."
She shared that all last week she would wake up with a scripture fresh in her mind. God was giving to her hope and assurance that His grace would empower her to do whatever the day brought her way.
As she spoke, I knew that we all were hearing the message God wanted to share with us. I laid my Bible down and sat there amazed at His goodness to take my wife to be the vessel He would speak through. She spoke with great passion about her struggle, that God had not deserted her but simply revealed a need that only He could fill. My wife brought the message.
She spoke of God's greatness and the true meaning of the word grace.
Grace-- The empowering presence of God in my life, that enables me to be who God created me to be......and to do what God has called me to do.....Grace!!
I'm grateful for those moments when God takes over the meeting. I grateful for Him teaching me that I don't always have to be the one up front leading the way. Sometimes I need to sit and be fed with His word. I need to hear another voice being used by God to receive what is on His heart.
To say that Saturday night was a good night would not go far enough.
Saturday night was a "GOD" night.
Nothing else left to say.
God on you....
mbb
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