Glass ceiling on my career/vocation:
I am a second best. To whom? To everyone else. Because everyone else is better than me at something. Someone else is getting the opportunity before me because he/she are more talented.
REAL ISSUE:
Pride. People have different gifts and no one was born superior over another. God gave different skills and talents to everyone but we choose whether to harness them or not. The issue is that I have not given the time and effort to recognize and harness the gifts that God has given me. That is why, I am not excelling.
“29for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable.” Romans 11:29
God has called each of us to a certain unique purpose. We must therefore recognize what our gifts are and follow God’s irrevocable calling. If we do otherwise, we feel empty and unfulfilled.
“For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. 7For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.” 2 Timothy 1:5-7
I have read this scripture many times but somehow my eyes just got opened to what it’s trying to tell me.
A. POWER. ”You have gifts Ingrid but you have to ‘fan them into flame’. You can’t be timid to share your talents and skills. That’s not the kind of spirit that’s inside you. God gave you the spirit of POWER. You have to step up and use your talents for God. Only then will realize what power you have.
Yes, with your gifts, you have God’s power to make an impact. You have great skills: listening and wise counsel, writing, and performing arts (singing, acting, directing, even dancing), persuasion. Use your talents to bless others and win others for the Lord because that is your life’s mission.
It really doesn’t matter if you are a novice, an expert, or average at what you do. Remember what the angel said to Gideon, “The Lord is with you mighty warrior….therefore go in the strength that you have. Am I not sending you?”
POWER does not come from you. It comes from God. Sometimes you feel weak because you think you are your own source of power. Wrong! POWER and STRENGTH comes from the Lord! “
Paul had the same struggle about himself. 2 Corinthians 11:16-12:11.
People were comparing Paul to the “super-apostles”-those who could perform miracles, signs, and wonders. In people’s minds, they were the first-rate apostles. In this sense, Paul was second-rate. There’s hardly any miracle, signs, and wonders being attributed to Paul---except maybe for his out-of-the-ordinary conversion. All that’s recorded of him (that I can recall) were his imprisonment, his arrests, his floggings, his preaching, his missionary journeys (2 Corinthians 11:21-29).
Sometimes, I feel like a second-rate person. I am a master of nothing, without any great achievement.
Like Paul, I would like to plead with the Lord to take away my weaknesses – thorns in my flesh that Satan uses to torment me and keep me from becoming conceited. It would be awesome to live life without doubts, failures, hardships, insecurities, character weaknesses.
In Paul’s mind, there was a tug of war between boasting about the things he can “really” boast about-- like the heavenly revelations he saw—and boasting about his weakness. Paul chose to boast about his weakness so that people will not think of him more highly than what is warranted.
Surely there are some things I can boast about myself in the past and in the present. However, if I must boast, I will boast of my imperfect knowledge, skills, and talents that God is able to use for His glory.
9” But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.’” 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
Did Gideon fight the Midianites with thousands of soldiers and charioteers? No…only with 300 soldiers and with GOD’S POWER. Did David fight Goliath with armor and spear? No…only with a sling and “a” stone and with GOD’S POWER. Did the walls of Jericho fall with grenades and nuclear weapons? No…only with marching and noises and GOD’S POWER.
God’s power is made perfect in my weakness. Whose power do I want recognized in my life? God’s power or “my” power (although there’s no such thing). If in my head my power rests in myself, I will be very tired with constantly trying to prove myself. But, if I rely on God’s power alone then I MUST BE NEITHER AFRAID NOR ASHAMED to show and use my imperfect talent or skill. I will boast all the more of my weakness so that Christ’s power may rest in me.
I have the spirit of POWER…but not the power that is of the world, humanistic, and arrogant. It is the power that comes from the Lord.
PRACTICALS:
1. Step up and share my talents and be confident. My skill or talent may not be perfect, yet I must still share and harness it.
2. Ministries I can be involved in are: BT leadership, BT d-group, talent/singing ministry, HOPE for grant writing.
3. Careers I can look for: Non-profit counseling, grant writing, school admissions counseling, job counseling, social services, family and children nonprofits
4. Whenever I am tempted to be insecure about my talents and skills, I can say to myself, “Go in the strength that you have Ingrid. God is with you. His calling is irrevocable. Your imperfect talent/skill highlights God’s power.
5. Skills I can maximize for the TechEdge Telecom business: writing, listening skills, wise counsel, persuasion.
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3 comments:
Ingrid,
Hey dear sister. I found your blog here as a link off of your business web site :).
I read this post and caught that you mentioned that you could recall little if any miracles attributed to Paul. I wanted to encourage you with only a few that I came up with:
Acts 14:1-3 “At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed. But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders.”
Acts 14:8-12 “In Lystra there sat a man crippled in his feet, who was lame from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed and called out, "Stand up on your feet!" At that, the man jumped up and began to walk. When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, "The gods have come down to us in human form!" Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker.”
Acts 16: Paul casts out an evil spirit out of a woman who was a soothsayer. The woman had been earning money for her "masters", but after being healed by Paul and the evil spirit cast out she obviously could no longer provide monetary support for them. The woman's masters then had Paul and Silas beaten and cast into prison...all this because of a miracle performed by Paul through the power of Christ Jesus.
Acts 19:11-16 "God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them. Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, "In the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out." Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. (One day) the evil spirit answered them, "Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?" Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.
Acts 20:7-12 "On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight. There were many lamps in the upstairs room where we were meeting. Seated in a window was a young man named Eutychus, who was sinking into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on.
Acts 28:1-9 "Once safely on shore, we found out that the island was called Malta. The islanders showed us unusual kindness. They built a fire and welcomed us all because it was raining and cold. Paul gathered a pile of brushwood and, as he put it on the fire, a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand. When the islanders saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to each other, "This man must be a murderer; for though he escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live." But Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects. The people expected him to swell up or suddenly fall dead, but after waiting a long time and seeing nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god.
There was an estate nearby that belonged to Publius, the chief official of the island. He welcomed us to his home and for three days entertained us hospitably. His father was sick in bed, suffering from fever and dysentery. Paul went in to see him and, after prayer, placed his hands on him and healed him. When this had happened, the rest of the sick on the island came and were cured.”
~Todd
Ingrid,
A few other thoughts. I was able to read your postings on positive thinking. When we take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ it is actually far different than mere positive thinking. In Hebrews 12:2 is tells us to "...fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."
What made Paul so radical was not positive thinking, but rather his resolve to know Christ Jesus and Him crucified. No greater ambition exists then that of the pursuit of Him. When that be our ambition...God himself will use our talents as He sees fit :)
One thing I have seen personally and that I have too often tried (and try) to do in my pride and flesh is to "use my talents and do great things ‘for God'" ….while all the while God is stating: "No...do not attempt to do great things "for me"...rather empty yourself of you and let it be ME that does great things THROUGH YOU". You see one is really all about us while the other is completely about God and His glory. It is subtle but true. Become nothing and let God be everything. That is the true way of the Cross”
Pray and meditate on these things and if on some point you think differently, that too I trust our glorious God will make clear to you.
Much Love in Christ my dear Sister,
Todd
Todd,
Thanks bro for citing those scriptures and correcting me of my unbiblical comments on Paul.
You are right about my prideful struggle to want to do great things "for" God, instead of emptying myself to be used by God.
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