Equipped for Today - Encouragement Café - September 7, 2016
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Equipped for Today
By Colleen Young
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. Ephesians 2:10 NLT Cross references:
It was just one of those days. I was trying to do a million things at once. I thought I could quickly make a dessert to bring to a friend’s house for dinner that night before I fed my 7-month old daughter. She is always so happy that I thought she would be fine with playing in her highchair, waiting patiently.
FYI- patient and 7-month old should NEVER be used in the same sentence.
Halfway through making my dessert, my patient, content daughter started to fuss.
Just a few minutes, honey.
The crying got louder. OK. It was time to feed her. I realized I had no food thawed out for her, so I quickly tried defrosting some carrots. The crying got louder and her face got redder.
I was then trying to manage the microwave, a screaming baby, and attempting to prevent my house from burning down with the dessert still baking. I tried feeding her. She spit the food out and proceeded to cry at the top of her lungs.
My baby was not the only one crying in the end. I felt like a failure and completely unqualified as a mother.
Have you been there? Trying to cram a gazillion things into a short time frame? Have you felt like a failure at where God has placed you?
Two hours prior to this incident, God called me to a place of being still. Psalm 46:10 says,
Be still and know that I am God.
It’s in the stillness, in the quiet, that God speaks powerfully. To know God means to know His heart and to know who He is in my life. As I started to list out who He is to me, He reminded me of Ephesians 2:10 which I had been studying earlier that week. He whispered to my heart,
I have equipped you for TODAY. I have created you for TODAY. I have given you purpose for TODAY.
He has equipped each of us to excel wherever He has planted us because there is purpose in all of it. Even in the mundane. Even with a crying baby. Even in a messy kitchen. You are His masterpiece, His prized possession.
Feeling powerless because of the busyness of life and a jam-packed schedule?
Be still before God. Take a few moments and journal who you know God to be in your life. Reflect on His power. Then, reflect on the role He has placed you in today.
Is it as a stay at home mom? Is it as a housecleaner? Is it as a teacher? Is it as an executive at a corporate firm?
Ask the Lord to equip you for the tasks you have at hand so that you may carry them out with excellence.
Lord, You have created us perfectly and with purpose. This purpose has been part of Your plan long before You created us. May we not lose sight of who we are in You. Before our day becomes filled with demands, allow us to carve time out to be still before You. Still enough to hear Your voice. Still enough to be surrounded by Your peace. Our schedules are demanding. Our lives are demanding. But because of being still before You, You can equip us for today to serve You with excellence. Amen.
Luke 12:22: 12:22-31pp — Mt 6:25-33
Luke 12:24: Job 38:41; Ps 147:9
© 2013 by Colleen Young. All rights reserved.
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