Working in Weakness

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I start... and stop, and start!... and stop, and start and stop, and so the circle goes with the blogging experience I've had.

I write because my heart swells with a desire to share the goodness of God which I see in the world around. God is not dead! He is not sleeping either! To those who are diligently seeking him he is liberal with his knowledge and goodness, his majesty and his peace.

Then I stop my action in sharing. I start feeling inadequate. Am I even qualified to teach about God and Christ? Am I even humble enough to do so? I've started SO many different blogs. Wanting to share!!....something. But maybe it's not a focused enough message, or maybe my platform needs to be different. Maybe this just wasn't meant to be done by someone like me.

Or how about this fear! I can get carried away by the praise of the world. Literally like a feather in the wind. SO carried away. Do I have the strength to only write and share what the spirit invites me to, rather than what people may say they want to hear?

I tend to share my perspective and experience as gospel truth (not intentionally... and I'm still learning how to change this about how I talk). Can I share while being sensitive to the situations of others, and still true to the experiences I have had?

I'm sure to offend someone.

Positive people will laugh and mock, and maybe it'd better if I never open my mouth.

Except...I have to share! I HAVE to share that God lives and Jesus is the Christ! My savior, and YOUR savior. He has saved all of us, and each of us. And life with him is OH SO GOOD (as my sister Al Caraway likes to say).

Then I remember "The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ," and the latter day prophet Joseph Smith Jr who translated it. The angel of God, Moroni, cautioned him to not be tempted to sell the golden plates for money (ooh, like me selling out on my blog or my mission to do something else someone else says I aught? hum, interesting). Joseph's family had always experienced challenges with money, and the angel knew this would be a hard for him. Then I realized... WHAT?!

The prophet of the restoration was human... like me.

He had weakness... like me.

GOD gave him weakness... like me.

Just a little note from the book of Ether (though the sentiment is echoed through all of scripture).

    Ether 12:27

    27 And if men come unto me I will show unto them their aweakness. I bgive unto men weakness that     they may be humble; and my cgrace is sufficient for all men that dhumble themselves before me; for if     they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make eweak things become strong     unto them.

And it helped me realize, we are called to testify, if we choose. We are called to shine our light! We are called IN our weakness. And THAT weakness God gave us serves as a reminder, and a warning light, to be sure we are founded on the rock. And we will KNOW when we are off course, because we will feel the weaknesses of our fallen state sneaking in to take over.

It took Joseph MANY years of being tutored before he was allowed to take the plates. Some of the time God saying flat out No, you're not ready. Even after he DID receive the plates, he still made plenty of mistakes (losing 116 pages of the manuscript.. hum, yep.. kind of a big deal). But do you know what ROCKS about the God we serve? The Lord PLANS for those things, he planned before those things before they even happened, before we were even born, before ANYONE was born. He as planned for us to be stumbling and tripping and falling our way through this life.

I testify that he has planned for your life. And that means He has also planned for mine! He will make our harvest, and our offering, perfect when we trust him to lead us along. Not because we are perfect, but because Christ is. And isn't that something?

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