Internal Insecurity, External Beauty
And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought.” 1 Chronicles 28:9a
Three Keynotes and sixteen breakout speakers for The Iron Sharpens Iron Conference in Easton, PA last Saturday. What a privilege I felt to be included among the breakout speakers!
When I walked in the door on Friday night to get set up for my Saturday talk and to join the other speakers for prayer all I saw were blond bombshells. O.K., most of them did not have blonde hair but they sure were not gray – like me.
They looked great in the way they dressed and greeted me without a hint of the same insecurity I was feeling. Then we got together in one place for prayer. They were incredibly spiritual. I felt like I had been taken into the wrong place. They had made a mistake inviting me.
The Holy Spirit brought me up short in my thinking during that prayer time. “You are not them. You are here because of the message I have given you, not the clothes you wear or the color of your hair!”
I knew it was childish and had been fighting the thoughts and feelings of insecurity since I had walked in the door. Some of these women had been in ministry for a long time. I had heard their names and knew some of their stories. They had tables that looked so professional compared to mine. They looked to me like they had perfect bodies, perfect clothes, and perfect make-up.
Then they prayed together and what they prayed reminded me that what we have is a perfect God who has brought us all to minister to His people. And He uses all of us to minister. Over 500 women came to this day of teaching and worship. The topics covered were varied and biblical. He had chosen those who were there to deliver a message — His message, not our message.
The temptation to compare ourselves to others is real. It is a fruitless activity we women engage in that is only a distraction and a deception to lead us to believe that we are less than others, as if that means we would be less than capable of serving the Lord and delivering the message He has given us.
Even in our day-to-day lives we tend to compare and think we should not speak because someone else could do it better or will be more attractive as they deliver the message. How little we think of God in those moments. As if those He is calling to hear His Word need some worldly attractiveness in order for Him to impress His Word on their hearts.
I remembered what the Bible says about John the Baptist in Matthew 3:4, “Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.” This does not sound like an attractive man and yet he was powerfully capable of delivering the message God gave Him. The next verse says, “Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.” (Matthew 3:5-6). God’s words spoken though John were the attraction. John was just the vessel God used to deliver it.
That sounds like a pretty powerful ministry, doesn’t it? So, as tempted as I was to run, I am confident that I am who God has made me to be. I will not dye my hair before my next speaking engagement. I will not run out and buy a new wardrobe. I will keep following and going where God calls me and saying what He tells me say.
In times of insecurity God is gracious to remind us of who He is. In kindness to us the Holy Spirit will whisper that we are “enough” – not beautiful by worldly standards but enough for God to use to minister to others.
The next Iron Sharpens Iron Women’s Conference in May 2, 2015 in Carlisle, PA. You may want to check it out here: http://ironsharpensironwomenpa.org/