These past two weeks, I kept questioning myself, “am I right, am I wrong”, especially when I faced with disappointments and difficulties in discipleship ministry.
Since my own life has been touched so mightily by God, I am often compelled by the Holy Spirit to share my experiences to others. However, to some degree, ministering people is also of a social skill. Many people are open to Jesus and the Holy Spirit, some are open to Jesus but not so familiar with the spiritual realm, and others have had bad experiences and may be suspicious. Therefore, when God reveals something to us in prayer for someone, we need to be careful. We always want to speak only to heal.
But, what if we can’t? What if we say things wrong and damage our friendship? What if we fail to deliver God’s message to them?
When these questions were haunting in my mind, then the next step I naturally took was to judge or justify myself, according to other people’s reaction and respond. Most of the time, people are normally nice and polite, as long as we don’t go too deep. But the problem is that sometimes when we try to uncover a truth, it can be quite painful, like ripping off the bandage. Under this circumstance, people are easy to feel shameful and vulnerable, even feel offended at me.
After going through these challenges, I doubted that if I was sharing the gospel in a right way. I felt I could never make it right. I was completely disqualified and unworthy. Consequently, fear came in. I started to be afraid of sharing God’s words to others. I became greatly hesitated to open my mouth as a witness to the light, and gradually lost the motivation to make the light shine through all lives. I feared for people more than God.
Then I kept saying to God, “God, I’m sorry that I messed up your job again. Could you please help me clean it up?” Until one day, when I told God this sentence again, a voice came in, “who do you think you are? Do you think you can mess my plan up? Do you think you can stop my will? Are you more powerful than me?” This message blew my mind! I was focus on our self-righteousness more than God’s goodness!
When we ask the question, are we right or are we wrong? We are actually asking shall we choose fear or shall we choose love? If we choose to love others, we will not worry about how they will look at us, but solely concern that if they will miss their chances to encounter with God.
Our own right or wrong does not matter because His righteousness and His grace is the matter! Our own powerless or limitations are not important, because His powers and faithfulness are unlimited over my powers! And even our own incorrectly expressed love to others are not a disaster, because it’s not hard for God to turn our failures into blessings!
Dear fearful souls! Don’t be afraid to spread the good news that God put in our lives! Don’t be afraid to speak the light into other people’s hearts! He loves us to do it! Why does God have us pray for what He already wants to do? Why does He use Angels when he has unlimited power to do the same things they do? Why does He use people to minister at all when the Holy Spirit is the perfect minister?
The answer is that He chooses to work through us because His nature is Love. His will is the greatest good in the Universe. His greatest expression of Love is to include the objects of His love in His perfect will. When God responds to our prayers for others, we have participated in the release of God’s loving power to a needy world. He has chosen to let us work with Him so we two can be close partners in the salvation of the world He made and so dearly loves.