The Vessel
Is God using me?
Or am I using God?
The reality is, it's either one or the other. I read a recent instagram post by Sisi about how she was rebaptised a year ago after realising she was active in ministry (thinking she was being used by God) but living a double life. I cringe at the amount of times in my own life I have hidden behind "God's service" when really I was yet to allow Him to use me. Yes, in "serving Him" on my own terms, in compartmentalising my life, I was really using Him to serve myself. I found myself interviewed by fellow persons in ministry, I found myself thrusted up on "stage" to share thoughts, passages of scripture, and I found myself enjoying the popularity that doing similar things in my former life, but with a focus less on the topic of Jesus and more on the topic of creativity and alternative arts, afforded me. And I praise God for tripping me up early and humbling my heart the ways that He has. My heart was still ragged, my mind still churning with the selfishness of yesteryears. I need(ed) Jesus. Every hour I need(ed) Jesus.
I say this because I know that a lot of us become trapped in this mindset. We move our obsessive behaviour over performing a certain way for praise and acknowledgement in the secular world and redirect this energy into performing a certain way for praise and acknowledgment in the Christian world. Do you ever feel that way? Did you swing from one side of the pendulum to the other when shuffling across into this new life of faith. Do you still, however, find yourself on the same pendulum? God's looking to move you to an entirely new place - into the presence of Jesus Christ, where you may abide (see further John 15).
He only is my rock and my salvation: he is my defence; I shall not be moved. - Psalms 62:6
Our ability to be still and know God, to avoid the same human frailty in the form of hypocrisy that we were moved by in our former lives, is anchored on Christ our rock and salvation. Abiding in Him and He in us, there is no delineation conceivable, as Christ does not fail as we do. It is a learning curve, but we have the master to guide us.
His mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23), and as I wake up each day, a new day to realign myself with God's desire to use me for beautiful, noble things is given to me. I ask for baptism of the Holy Spirit knowing I alone cannot survive a day without His guidance. I needn't be thrown back into the baptismal waters for my daily failures, but I come to acknowledge that the refreshing of the spirit allows me to enter into the joy of the Lord prematurely. Life abundant and eternal begins now.
