Equipped

  Now may the God of peace… equip you with every good thing to do his will. – Hebrews 13:20-21 NET


To do many kinds of work you need particular equipment.  My office contains equipment for acrylic and watercolour painting, I have loads of brushes and different paper and canvases to paint on but they lie mostly untouched.  I am a "wanna be" artist.  I love to make greeting cards and this also requires tools, dies, stamps and an embossing/cutting tool, not to mention a heap of various cards and papers.  The card making equipment, I am happy to say, gets quite a bit of use.  It is my "happy place" when I am crafting cards.


When we come to Christ, he has a purpose and a plan that he sees for our lives (Jeremiah 29:11).  He equips us to do what he 'sees' us doing and he plants within us a passion, desire or a leaning towards doing those things, so then it comes easy to us.  Our daughter is a compassionate caring person with a way of handling the elderly and needy. (Not that I let her handle me!!) Our son is passionate about flying (inherited from Dad).  I find administration and working with words comes naturally.  When a verse speaks to my heart and I set out to write, I won't really know where it's going because the Holy Spirit is guiding my thoughts and bringing other scriptures to mind. I don't have to struggle with it, usually anyway! In 2 Corinthians 3:5 Paul writes, "Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God." 




When we work or serve in the area that God has equipped us for we will be satisfied and fruitful in our work.  We run into trouble and stress when we try to do things outside of our giftedness.  I recently discovered that with something I had volunteered to do.  I became so stressed every time I had to pick up the phone to do the job.  It 'wasn't me' and I had to admit it and bow out gracefully.  What a relief!

Is there something you are struggling with?  Do you feel like a square peg in a round hole?  You'd better find a square hole instead.  Look again and see what energises you and satisfies you and it will take the stress out of your work.  Life is too short to go through life doing what you think you should be doing instead of what you enjoy doing.  By the way, it's quite okay to enjoy yourself!  Of course there will always be day to day things we don't really enjoy doing like chores, but they are just a part of living and have to be done, but the kind of work we do or our work and/or Christian service should be satisfying, leaving us fulfilled, not frustrated. 

Prayer:  Heavenly Father thank you for equipping me to do the kind of work that will satisfy me and fulfil your purposes for my life.  If I need to make some changes that will help me to be more in line with what you designed me for, please show me what I should do.  Amen