A friend told me a story recently.
It started with him looking out the window one morning and praying, “God, use me today.”
He then went on to tell how God had used him that day in an unexpected way.
That story penetrated my heart in a way my friend couldn’t have anticipated. It wasn’t the unexpected way that God chose to use him that captured my attention.
It was the simple and powerful act of greeting the day by asking God to “Use me today.” Not someday, somehow, somewhere, in some abstract way yet to be determined. Today.
I’ve never even thought to pray for that. Why not?
I do pray every morning and usually thank God for the gift of the new day.
I often pray that God will soon reveal to me how He wants me to be an instrument of His Will.
But in the back of my mind I still believe I’m just “in training,” so not yet ready to carry out His work here on Earth.
But aren’t we all still “in training?”
I often start my days planning what I intend to do, where I will be and when, with whom I will meet or speak, what work I will try to get done. But even Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane to, “let it be as You, not I, would have it.”
When is the last time you prayed … not for help getting through a daunting set of tasks you want to accomplish, not in thanks for the glorious day God has made, not for God’s guidance in revealing His abstract Grand Plan for your service to Him … but simply, “Use me today?”
What my friend may not realize is that his telling this story was still part of God’s answer to his prayer. God is using him through the telling of the story. It changed me … totally revamped my vision of what it means to surrender to God, to be an instrument of His will. Not someday. Not somehow. Not somewhere. Not in the abstract. Today. Now.
Wow.
GodChild 