Get a Scary Amount of Help for Your Life
I had been calling out to the Lord for several days, telling him I felt overwhelmed by life and saying, “I can’t do all of this.” That was when I opened my email, to find a request from the children’s director. Would I be willing to teach the missions segment of Vacation Bible School? My response was something like, “Ha!” and closing my laptop.
Teach VBS. Pfff.
The next day I opened my email again and re-read her question. She said the magic words, “We have curriculum, but you can do whatever you want. And also we want you to share a gospel presentation.” The gospel? I loooove sharing the gospel with kids. Whatever I want? Israel came to mind, the Israel that God had been branding on my heart for a year and a half. This was a call from the Lord.
Matt said, “Do it!”
I joked that maybe God hadn’t been hearing me all those days when I felt like I couldn’t breathe and kept saying toomuchtoomuchtoomuchtoomuch. But obedience is the spice of life, so I typed out an “I would love to” and hit send.
Following God is nuts.
The weeks continued to be full, as I finished the whirlwind last month of school and then had company. VBS came, and I was not ready. Really not ready, and I like to be a teacher who has been marinating on my lessons for days, if not weeks.
Before VBS began, I spent one early morning reading about the time when Jesus and the disciples were in a boat on the Sea of Galilee. A huge storm came up, and it was enough to fill the boat faster than a man could bail and to freak out seasoned fisherman. They went to Jesus, and he calmed the storm. The next sentence came alive for me:
They were terrified. (Mark 4:41 NIV)
What an awesome memory verse. They were terrified when they experienced what Jesus could do, and I turned that into a prayer. Lord, I want to be terrified at how much you can help me in my life right now.
Don’t you think most of the time we feel terrified that we won’t get help? Totally backwards. We should ask for help and then shake in our boots at the power that will be used on our behalf.
I tackled VBS, and every day of preparation was a heavy burden and stressful drudgery, if I can be honest. The afternoons felt like water swamping the boat, and I couldn’t bail fast enough. Some people work well under stress, but I’m not one of those people, especially coming into the week already worn out from a long, hard season. Then I would get up to teach each day, and it was the most amazing, rich week with the kids. I could feel Jesus helping me while I was teaching. It was incredible, like telling a storm to be quiet and it listens.
You need help, too. I know you do. Ask Jesus for help and then employ your imagination, to be completely terrified at what he can bring to your problems and needy places.
I so appreciate your willingness to be real in your posts. ‘Following God is nuts.’ so resonated with me in this season! And I read this at just the right time (and that terrified feeling is starting….) to have it fit in with so many other things God is showing me right now to let me know He is in this season and has an answer to what seems impossible right now. No plan, no list (what?!), just leaning with all my might on the Rock and praying for the storm to end! Thank you for the reminder that the One who creates the storm is more than able to see me through it.
I’m sorry I’m just now responding to your note. (Summer, ya know.) I pray the Lord will keep encouraging you and giving you everything you need for this season you’re going through! Be scared of the incredible help he wants to give you.
So like God! I was chewing on Matthew 14:22 this Am before you email arrived. Jesus MADE them go BEFORE/AHEAD of Him.
Those two words were like two neon arrows pointing the way to something I needed.
My initial thoughts were He did it because He knew the storm was coming and through this experience He would strengthen them in their knowledge of who He was and what He could do or if it was a lesson about going ahead without Him…(yes, I know He sent them alone.
I have several decisions I have not been able to make and just didn’t feel like now was the time to move on them.)
Interesting that Jesus would send them INTO the DIRECT path of the storm ALONE so that ONLY HE could show up to help with His mighty power and His ability to RESCUE, but to also give Peter a new lesson in faith.
The first word in Matthew 14:22 is Immediately… Jesus knew the disciples had to be in the boat at the right time to get out ahead of the storm to be where they had to be
SO that they would be in the storm.
If they weren’t in the midst of the storm, how would Peter have ever received his intimate, crazy encounter and experience with Jesus that only He got to have.
Ephesians 3:20-21 keeps coming back to my mind.