WHAT on Earth are You?

 

What on Earth Are You?

            “What am I?” I questioned the Lord a few years ago at Forest Home, during our family’s annual pilgrimage to Family Camp.

The Lord and I have a lot of conversations at Forest Home. I related an earlier conversation with Him in a Guideposts Article from 2011, "The Pinecone Promise." 

All the troubles, questions, and worries of the past year get dredged up and He deals with me there. It’s not that He’s not dealing with me throughout the year of course, but something about being away, being at a place that’s been dedicated to Christ in the way that Forest Home has seems to help me focus more effectively. 

In 2019 (the last time we went before the shutdowns in 2020), I happened to be struggling with identity. People in their 30’s do that. I spent my 20’s busily working with my husband to get established as a family, start a career, get out debt, build a house, end a career, have a baby, start a new career as a stay-at-home-mom, establish our new house, establish ministries at church, and lay the foundations for our future.

And always in the back of my mind was this expectation that someday I would be important- famous, perhaps, incredible- that I was in the process of becoming something. Something amazing.   

But now- here I was, a mom with three children, busy with ministry, with housework, with everything. I hadn’t written that best-seller yet, hadn’t starred on Broadway, and my ministries, though important and valuable seemed pretty paltry in comparison to what other people were doing.

And somewhere in the middle of all the dishes and laundry, I began to wonder- is this it? I mean, wasn’t I supposed to become…. something? Did I miss the boat somewhere? Were other people out dreaming big dreams and accomplishing amazing things while I lived out my quiet existence in relative obscurity?  

 I brought my questions to the Lord. I began to pour through the Bible, looking for the answer to this age-old question that I’m sure I wasn’t the first to ask. “WHAT on Earth am I supposed to be?”

A wife? A mother? A drill sergeant? A Leader? A Follower? A Performer? A Worker? A Dishwasher?

Those all had some elements of truth, but they were not the Truth I was seeking.

Finally I came across Ephesians 2:10, and it was as if a ray of light from heaven illuminated the page, pointing out the answer in black and white.

  Ephesians 2:10

 ¹⁰ For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

It was a verse I’d ready many times before…but had never really considered. 

Suddenly I knew it was my answer. I, like all Christians, am His (God’s) workmanship. What a comfort to know that it’s not about me. And to know that I don’t have to make it all up as I go along- God has good works He has prepared in advance for me to do.  

    In My Utmost for His Highest, (August 3^rd Entry,) Oswald Chambers observes, “At the beginning of the Christian life we have our own ideas as to what God’s purpose is — “I am meant to go here or there”; “God has called me to do this special work”; and we go and do the thing, and still the big compelling of God remains. The work we do is of no account, it is so much scaffolding compared with the big compelling of God.”

            The good works I do are just the scaffolding that God uses to create me, His masterpiece, His workmanship. I may not always know WHAT He is building out of me, exactly. But HE does. My work is not what I am, nor is your work what you are. Will you be a cathedral? A Sweat Lodge? I wouldn't mind being a little prayer chapel.

    I don’t know. But He knows what He is shaping you, and me, into. And if we let him, He will make something beautiful.

Top Image: The Forest Home Prayer Chapel by Kyle Ng on Flickr.