The Pencil

Philippians 2:13 ~ for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

               When I felt God asking me to speak at our Women’s Worship Event this year, I told Him, “I’ll do it, but you will have to do it through me.  I’m not capable of doing something like that.”  As I prepared for what I was going to speak on, the material came to me easily, but each time I tried to practice it or go over what I had written out I felt God saying, “No, just trust me.”  I began to get very nervous the closer the night came and I was still struggling with practicing it and consistently hearing God say, “No, Trust me.”  Friends would say, “You got this” and I would say, “Nope, God’s got it!  I definitely do not!”

About a week before the event my friend Whintony shared with me a little excerpt from the Bible Study she was doing.  It mentioned an interview that Mother Thresa was giving where the interviewer asked her what special qualities she possessed that allowed her to make such a massive impact.  Her response was, “I don’t claim anything of the work. It is His work. I am a like a little pencil in His hand, that is all. He does the thinking. He does the writing. The pencil has nothing to do with it. The pencil has only to be allowed to be used.” (https://time.com/archive/6703981/interview-with-mother-teresa-a-pencil-in-the-hand-of-god/ by Edward W. Desmond)

Within a day or two of reading that quote, I ran across the song Author by Brandon Lake. One line says, “Who am I to question the pen in the hands of the Author?” As always God was using multiple outside influences to remind me that I was just a vessel. It gave me a surreal sense of peace that I’ve never experienced before.  Any other time I’ve had to speak, I would get extremely nervous, sick to my stomach, and agonizing over ever word that I was planning to say.  This time I had, for once, completely put it all in the hands of the Author and was trusting Him to show up.  I told Him several times, “God if you don’t show up, it will be a disaster.” 

Then just a few days before the event, my little ball of sunshine friend JeNell, asked me how she could pray for me.  I sent her the Mother Theresa quote and told her, “I just want to be His pencil.”  The night we were decorating for the event, she gave me a gift, when I opened it, it was a pack of pencils!!  In that moment I knew God was saying, “I got this and I got you. Trust me!”  I walked into the event that night without a care in the world. I was completely free to enjoy myself and just be me.  I wasn’t thinking anxiously about what I was going to say, or how I was going to say it.  I talked that night about the pure joy of being used by God, but that night I experienced the perfect peace that comes from allowing God to do it and not trying to do it myself. 

I believe sometimes God asks us to do something so far outside of our comfort zone that we can’t see our comfortable place anymore and I think sometimes it scares us because we think we have to do it.  It was an absolute blessing to learn the lesson that we do not have to do it.  We just have to be willing to be used by our loving Father.  When we allow Him to write our story, to use us to do His will and bring glory to Him, we are living in the abundance that Christ came so we could have.  I pray for more opportunities to just be the pencil and the courage to say yes to those moments!