Listen to the Voice of the Lord
The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.
PROVERBS 18:21
When I was in second grade, I received a school report card with the following comment from my teacher: “Christine is a great motivator, but she must realize that she cannot always be the leader.” Can you believe that a teacher would write such a thing? Well, that single sentence totally devastated me, and I remember as an eight-year-old child making a deliberate decision to take a step back and never volunteer for any leadership role again. I thought that my teacher wrote that comment because something must be wrong with me, and so I allowed her perspective to limit my potential for many years.
How many times have we succumbed to the limitations that others have placed on us? I have discovered that if the enemy cannot convince us directly that we are not enough, he will endeavor to use others to hold us back. So often we finally develop the courage to rise up and trust that God can use us; and before we are standing upright, someone will cross our path to tell us we are not capable of doing the thing we believe the Lord is asking of us.
Sometimes we share our dreams and aspirations with friends and family only to be met with responses such as, “Who do you think you are? You could never do that. You are so bad at that. Why don’t you try something else?” If our own doubts are not enough to stop us from getting up, then there will always be a multitude of other voices trying to keep us down. Unfortunately, it is often the voices of those who are closest to us that echo the loudest and to which we tend to listen most. We must determine to listen to the voice of the Lord more than any other voice in our lives.
MOMENT OF REFLECTION
What is the Lord trying to tell you about yourself — specifically about your strength, passion, and calling?