Cheri Strange, Christian Speaker and Author

     My post is late! It was a week filled with newness: fresh beginnings, nervous introductions, and challenging schedules to maneuver. It was a week also of old: old techniques for handling the stress of newness, old ways of dealing with negative situations, and old feelings of inadequacies in a myriad of areas.

     These two elements of new and old seemed to collide most expressively when I overlooked one child’s medicine and completely forgot to feed another child because I took them new places for school. (Thank the Lord for grandmas who carry snacks!) While locating the new classrooms, I was absolutely rude to a person trying to be helpful in a way I haven’t behaved in years. That evening I tried a new recipe --- and burned it as if I DIDN’T cook at least five nights a week for a couple of decades! In striving to get a handle on the new – some of the old in me reared its ugly head. I found the whole experience extremely irritating.

     By the end of the week I had convinced myself that my life was so full of inconsistencies and inadequacies that there was no possible way God could do any significant Kingdom work with my life. It’s funny. I did not really understand this to be the crux of my personal angst until I read a familiar set of verses from my daily Bible readings. In 2 Corinthians 3:4-6, Paul writes, “Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant---.”

     God knows I’m incompetent to do what He’s called me to do. He is fully aware of my recurrent bad behavior and missteps. He understands I sometimes forget important things --- like feeding my four year old. He knows I’m really not Super Mom. I am full of irritating inadequacies of which He is completely familiar. But it doesn’t matter. I’m not the point. His grace can cover anything I hold up to Him. Ultimately, my competency to do what God’s called me to do has nothing to do with me and everything to do with Him.

     What a relief!