I can remember when I was 18.......Way back in the stone age.....When we used to have to write letters with chisels on stone tablets.
I had just enlisted in the Navy, and I was leaving for boot camp. I was feeling many mixed emotions at the time. I was a little frightened by what I might experience in the whole boot camp environment. After all, I had heard many horror stories about such things. But there was no turning back at this point. I had already signed all of the paperwork, and for all intents and purposes, the government would own me for the next 4 years.
What drove me to enlist was a number of different factors, but the bottom line was that I simply didn't feel loved, appreciated, or important to anyone where I was. I felt as though my family had discarded me, some of my closest friends wanted nothing to do with me, and worst of all, I had just split up with a girlfriend who I was madly in love with. I needed to get away and start again somewhere new, and the Navy offered me the opportunity to "see the world" as they put it.
I made it through boot camp, through my schooling, and was assigned to my ship, the U.S.S. McKee, stationed in San Diego, California. I worked very hard to get there, being near the top of my classes, and once I arrived, I quickly gained the favor of those who were in command of my shop. They realized that I was a hard worker, willing to do whatever they asked of me, so they assigned me to their best Petty Officers to assist them in completing some of the more difficult, important jobs we were given to do.
While there, I began to feel a sense of value and purpose that I had never felt before. I wasn't being told that I was lazy and useless, as my father had told me far too many times. I was valuable to them, and they treated me accordingly. That felt very good, but it was very short-lived. In time, I came to realize that - in reality - I wasn't any more valuable than the next guy. I was, in their eyes, a very replaceable part amid hundreds of other replaceable parts.
I was in a better place than where I came from, but it still felt empty. I didn't feel truly valuable anymore.
As the years went by, I found myself attempting to find the value in myself that had always eluded me. I looked for it in relationships, friendships, various jobs, as a father, etc.. I excelled in the workplace, I excelled as a musician, playing in various bands. But in the end, none of this ever made me feel truly valuable.
It wasn't until I was 47 years old that I finally found it. Due to a number of various circumstances that couldn't possibly be explained away as coincidence, I began to feel as though God was reaching out to me. I began to pray about this, and started the journey of seeking him out. My two greatest passions throughout my entire life had been writing and playing music, and God began to use my talents and abilities in those areas within my church. Doors began to open for me that had never been opened before, and I stepped through them in faith, asking God to lead me, direct me, and empower the gifts and abilities he had given with his Spirit.
The results were incredible, and like nothing I had ever experienced before. I found myself on a stage in front of my church, playing my guitar while watching a large group of people singing their hearts out to Jesus, tears in their eyes. To be a part of creating an environment where people were so incredibly moved and passionate about what they were feeling was the most moving experience I had ever felt. I knew that I'd rather experience that than to play at Madison Square Garden.
I then began to write this blog, which has now been viewed over 6,000 times, in 36 different countries, across all 6 continents.
I had been writing throughout my entire life, and I had been playing music throughout my entire life, and I had never experienced anything even close to what I was seeing happen since giving those gifts to God and asking him to empower them through his Spirit.
Without that empowerment, these were merely hobbies, but with that empowerment, they became tools in the hand of God, and I began to see the beautiful work only he could do through them.
So, what did this give me? Value. The value I had never felt at anytime in my life before this. After all, there is nothing that can make any of us feel more valuable than knowing that the Creator of all things loves us, hears us, responds to us, empowers us, and is then more than eager to use us in ways that we never dreamed possible so that he and he alone might receive the glory. It's not about the value I see in myself. It is about the value God sees in me.
You see, life is not about us. Life is about Christ. This is not about our weakness, this is about his strength. This is not about our past failures, it is about his grace, forgiveness, and lovingkindness.
No job, relationship, or level of success we experience will ever come close to making us feel as valuable as when we come to the realization that this is God's world, not ours, and that within his world, he has chosen us as his children, and then empowered us to do his work. So, what gifts, talents, and abilities do you have? What are the things that have always seemed to just come naturally to you while others struggle in those areas?
Bring those things to the Lord. Ask him to empower them with his Spirit, to use them in ways that bless his people, and to give you opportunities to use them. You'll be astonished by what you'll see.
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