My three-year-old daughter Jessica loves to help around the house. She takes pride in being a “good helper”, and whenever she’s asked to do something, she trots off importantly to accomplish the task. Upon being told she’s done a good job, she beams with pleasure.
I knew Jessica was convinced that she is a good “cweaner”, a good mopper, and a good cook. But I didn’t know she was also a…well, let me tell you the story.
The other day, my husband was preparing homemade strawberry topping for the homemade shortcake I had made. “Can I help?” Jessica asked.
“She’s a good helper,” I affirmed to my husband, not because he didn’t know, but so Jessica could hear me say it.
“I have to slice the strawberries with a sharp knife, so that’s something Daddy has to do himself,” he said. “Then I just have to macerate them.”
“I’m a good macewator!” Jessica shouted happily.
I’m sure she had no more idea what the word meant than I did (apparently, it means letting the berries sit in sugar until the juices come out). But that didn’t stop her. She just knew she was a good…whatever it was.
It’s kind of like a point Robert Fulghum made in his book All I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten. He talked about how if you ask a class of kindergarteners, “Who’s a good (singer/artist/runner)?” they will all shoot their hands into the air and shout, “Me!” But ask that same group of people twenty years later, and few of them will say, “Yep, I’m good.”
Why is that? It’s because kindergarteners haven’t yet learned to compare themselves to others and find themselves inferior. They haven’t fully grasped the idea that “some are better than others” and that they might be part of the “others”. As adults, we know it full well, and we’ve categorized ourselves with the “some” or the “others” depending on the category.
Many of those kindergarten girls might dream of being ballerinas. Many of the boys probably dream about being sports stars. But those same kids twenty years later no longer have those same dreams. They “know” they can’t do it, so they don’t want to try.
Sometimes, this isn’t a problem. After all, we have to be realistic. For example, I’m 5’4” and female. I will never play for the NBA no matter how hard I practice, so I might as well admit it now. The problem comes in when we categorize ourselves wrongly (an “other” when we should be a “some”, or vice versa), or when we let our “otherness” cause us to feel bad about ourselves. Worse yet is when we let our perceived “otherness” cause us to believe we can’t do something God has called us to do, or when we lose the desire to try because we believe we can’t be the perfect “some”.
Instead of being a really great “some”, even if not the very best one, we wind up being, in terms of our service,…nothing. Instead of being an average “some”, but one whom God has called, we are…nothing.
Moses would understand how we feel. When God met him at the burning bush and called him to lead his people out of Egypt, Moses made excuses. “They’re not going to listen to me,” he said.
“Okay,” God said, “tell them My Name. Then they will listen.”
“Maybe,” Moses said. “But what if they still don’t believe me?”
“All right,” God said, “I’ll teach you how to perform miracles that will validate your credibility in their eyes.”
“But I can’t speak very well,” Moses protested.
“Who do you think made your mouth?” God demanded. “And if I say you can do it, you can do it already! Now go! I’ll even help you!”
“Aw, come on, please pick somebody else,” Moses begged.
“Moses, you blew it!” God said. “I’ll pick your brother, all right, but you just missed out on a huge blessing.”
Obviously, I have paraphrased this story, but don’t miss the point: Moses didn’t want to do the job because he was afraid he wouldn’t succeed.
How often are you and I tempted to do the same thing—to let somebody else do the job because we don’t want to fail? Granted, nobody likes failure, but why in the world would we think we’d fail if God has called us to do it? Do we not believe that He will enable us to do that which He’s commanded us to do?
No, we don’t. Or at least, not always. We’re more concerned with how we will feel if we fail or how we will look to others (which gets back to how we will feel) than we are with God’s greatness and complete ability. We’d rather miss out on a few blessings than take a chance on looking foolish to others. In other words, we care more about what others think of us than what God thinks of us. And what do you think God thinks of us in that situation? Sure, He still loves us. He always will. But I bet He thinks something like There’s my beloved child who just won’t trust me! Why won’t you? Why do you not believe that if I call you, I will never abandon you?
So we spend our lives being only intermittently willing vessels for His use—provided, of course, that He doesn’t call us to do something out of our comfort zone. Provided that He doesn’t ask anything beyond what we think we are capable of.
Friend, God can—and will!—make you capable of anything He calls you to do. Don’t limit His work in you by hesitating or refusing when He calls you. Choose to trust Him. Be useful for Him. Let Him make of you what He wants—not merely what you will permit.
I don’t know what use He might want to make of your life today. But I do know it’s incredible. In fact, it was valuable enough to Him that He wants to assign you to do it. Will you let Him do what He wants to do? Or will you be your own master? Will I?
I pray we won’t. I pray when He asks “Who’s a good servant for me?” that instead of saying “Please find somebody else,” we’ll shoot our hands up and shout, “Me!” knowing that He will enable us. Let’s all go back to kindergarten, when we believed anything was possible. Because anything He calls us to is possible.
2 Corinthians 9:8—And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
Megan Breedlove 
