Being All You Can Be?

Michael Gungor Band - Beautiful Things

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You know the encouraging phrase, the one where you usually picture the father with his son or daughter bouncing on his knee as he tells him or her "Honey, you can be whatever it is in this world you want to be when you grow up...as long as you set your mind to it."

Do you feel that's biblically accurate?  Do you think that's a message we should tell our children?

Don't get me wrong here. I'm not a nay sayer. Far from it.

However, it really peeves me when I buy into a worldistic mentality just because I've always heard it. That I've somehow accepted it along the way as truth.  That's junk.  You know why...?  Yeah, that phrase may be encouraging and all, but what the Bible says about "Be all you can be" is way cooler!

See this...

I stink at Jenga!... and Math? Don't even get me started.  This structure is recognized around the world, but if I were being "all I could be" I still couldn't build it. 

Biology is completely over my head and to be passionate about cutting someone open. Baha, my stomach turns at the thought of it.  I was not created to do that, but I am so grateful others were.

A Huge fault of mine is disorganization. If I were allowed in a lab, I can promise you I would be the cause of a pandemic, because some fool got her tubes mixed up. Yup, that'd be me!  But others they find this the coolest thing ever.  Yeah, I know. Crazy right?!?!  :)  Thank you LORD for giving them this gift!

I can not even draw a cute stick man. Can you imagine a world without Van Gough?  I love art. There are so many images I could stare at for hours just soaking it all in.  It is amazing how artists have a way of expressing their inner most soul without using a single word. Simply amazing! But I was not created to do it. :)

Carpentry? My dad loves wood work. He can make a pile of junk a treasure in no time. It's beautiful.  I could not be passionate enough about it to spend time learning it though.  Needless to say, that I could ever be good at it.  However, can you imagine a life without a rocking chair or a front porch swing?

There are some days I can barely handle my own children, needless to say a room full of children that are not my own. Yowza! I have a mini-panic attack at the thought of it.  So grateful that the Lord placed a passionate heart to teach children in some.

I mean I could hang out with children for a day, playing, talking, etc. having a big ol' time and being silly, but organizing a lesson, having patience to get through the day. Aw, junk! Nope not me!

I took photography in college for one semester. I was so bad at it, my teacher actually made fun of me, "no lie".  I am blown away at how photographers can capture beauty in something completely mundane! 
I've seen pictures friends have taken. While I was standing right there! and I questioned, "where did you see that? I'm looking at it and it just looks like a leaf! Where's the cool leaf?"

James 1:17 (ESV)

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

Ephesians 4:7-8 (ESV)

But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says,
    "When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
   and he gave gifts to men."

If we were in charge of our gifts we'd have more lawyers than Doctors or more teachers than artists. More writers than singers. More Presidents of the United States than carpenters. 

I love Beth Moore, but I could never be envious of the amazing talents and gifts the Lord has blessed her with. If I were, I'd be wasting my own. 
Kristi Yamaguchi, is an amazing figure skater, and I think it would be fun to skate like her.  I can try and look like an idiot, but I could never allow myself to be envious of her gifts...they're hers not mine.

You see GOD knit you together in your mothers womb. (Ps. 139) When HE knit you, (every little detail of you was by Divine design, not a drop of the effort of GOD was by accident) He also gave you the gifts you needed to fulfill HIS destination for your life.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. - Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

"I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength."-Phil. 4:13 (ESV)

When you pursue Christ, He reveals the gifts HE has placed in your life. He strengthens the gifts in me I never knew existed. Our gifts were given by HIM, for HIM and to be used for HIS glory- not our own.

He made you suited perfectly for what HE wants to see from your life.  See for me I've found several tiny gifts.  But when HE shows them to me and I surrender them, He makes them beautiful and useful to HIM.

In my strength my gifts are a D effort at best, but when surrendered to Christ there is no end to what HE can do with them.  Whatever I have the faith to surrender fully, willing to rid myself of my comfort zone or my conveniences HE can make beautiful.


We have to teach our children that our lives are not our own. Our days, our moments are to be used by HIM and for HIM.

I think of the passage:

Matthew 6:25-27
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

GOD is always at work around you.  What are the gifts HE's given you. 
What gifts are you trying to mimic after someone else?
What is HE asking you to surrender today to be made perfect for HIS glory? 

HIS Clay~




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Going Solo

Galatians 5:25

If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.

I hang my head in shame as I admit this, maybe it will free you up to admit it too, but

I identify with Peter.

Yeah, Peter. No, not the post resurrection Peter.


I'm talking about the Peter who walked along with Christ and spoke twice as much as he thought. My husband calls him the disciple with a foot shaped mouth.
Oh, boy do I identify! 

Sad to say, I think Peter was actually much wiser than me.

You know the story about Peter walking on water?

Well here's my interpretation of how pathetic it would have been if I were in Peter's shoes.

Oh yeah, I would be the one that said,

"Hey that looks fun let me try."

I'd try, I'd get scared, but then I'd get my balance and a little bit of confidence and then I'd say,

"Hey guys, look what I can do!"

Then I'd fall on my face. - Splat!

I long to know God. I desire more than anything to have a major impact for His Kingdom. I want my life to be used 100% for His glory alone. The problem is I am sometimes more like an over zealous child.

I have a 4 year old son. He loves his mommy. He really wants to please me in the things that he does.

For instance: He knew that Paitlyn (his 2yr old sister) needed a haircut, and to save me the time and energy,  he decides he should cut it himself.  

This past week He knew his sister was thirsty so he filled her cup up with water - from the potty. (she has been sick all weekend). 

Or he knows how much I love his art so he thinks of a great plan, a way for mommy to treasure it forever, so he got out a sharpie to color on mommy's brand new dining room table. 

Yes, just like Jesus, I love my son with an everlasting love, otherwise by now I would have taken him back to where I got him.

Isn't this exactly how we treat God sometimes. We want to make Him happy so we come up with an amazing scheme for evangelism or a fantastic new program for church, and think Lord look at me and all I am doing for you, aren't You proud?  Often we pray about what we're wanting to do for God and we ask Him to bless it.

Instead we should fall on our faces with no preconcieved notion of "what might make God happy" and have our hearts and minds humbled to accept HIS wisdom.


The bible clearly says over and over that GOD is the author of wisdom. He does not need us to show HIM how cool we are or how devoted we are.


I can't imitate a program or an act of evangelism the Lord has laid on someone else's heart.  He has gifted me with HIS gifts that He wants to activate and use within me. HE has equipped each of us in a specific way to bring HIM the glory HE deserves. How funny is the idea of the creation trying to show off to the CREATOR.
"Look what I can do!" It's ignorant. 

God knows exactly what I'm capable of.  What He's interested in, is showing us exactly what HE's capable of. That can only come from a humble, surrendered life; that is looking for the Father to lead and not trying to lead the FATHER!

You see the thing is: the stone David threw at Goliath, without the Power of God directing that stone, it was just a rock in a kids hand.

You see the disciples that were up fishing all night trying their best to make a living and caught NOTHING all night long- it made No sense for them to throw the nets on the other side of the boat, other than that's what Christ commanded them to do and try once more. It seemed senseless.

However, with the power of GOD behind it, the amount of fish caught almost toppled the boat!  We need to quit trying to make sense with our lives and say "Here I am Lord, YOU use me."

Make my mind a sponge Lord! When YOU speak may I have the humility to Hear it, Accept it and APPLY it! May I never be too busy filling out my own agenda and overlooking YOUR direction!

May we learn to walk by the SPIRIT alone and not from our own initiatives!

HIS Clay~