When I prayed for a quiet and gentle spirit, I thought that would mean that the Holy Spirit would change my personality. That I would become one of those sweet, subdued women I admire so much. Women who now how to respond appropriately to situations. Women who don’t shout “Hallelujah!” and disrupt otherwise quiet and gentle proceedings. Women who never lose their tempers or say things they later regret. Women who always look put together and never drop meatballs on their dresses at church potlucks. Angels, really – secret agents born straight from heaven. No wonder my friends doubted the likelihood of my prayer being answered. “God made you the way you are,” they tried to reassure me as I mopped up the ranch dressing I’d dribbled on my shirt. “He’s not going to make you stop being you.” And they were right. God is infinitely more creative than that. He is a God of diversity and not monotony. He’s much more interested in taking our personalities, tempering and taming them by His Holy Spirit and recruiting them for work in His kingdom, than He is in churning out church-lady clones. Like Martha of Bethany, I’d spent most of my life “worried and upset about many things” (Luke 10:41). And like Martha, I’d asked for what I thought I lacked – more help in the kitchen. Tools to live more effectively in this life. Something to make me…well, less like me. But God in His wisdom had given me what I needed and what Martha needed as well – freedom from fear. He hadn’t changed my personality. He’d changed me. He hadn’t made me quiet. He’d quieted my soul. Excerpted from At The Feet of Jesus by Joanna Weaver
Posted on: Thu, 20 Jun 2013 23:36:25 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015