For Such A Time As This

When you discover that God has created you uniquely, you won’t spend your life trying to copy everyone else. - Lisa Bevere

Question: What is a current lie you believe about your own life? Write one universal truth that exposes this lie. 

I believe what I have been given is not enough. I constantly fight between the knowledge that I have been given gifts to use, and comparison with others who have been given the same gifts and are using them in far more interesting and impactful ways than I could.  Writing is an art. It is not an art that makes you untouchable, but connects soul to soul. I am a writer and deep inside I desire to be an artist. To create with whatever I can get my hands on and share it proudly. Then the lie soaks into the surface and penetrates my bones. There is no place for you. You do not have what it takes. Those words have already been spoken. And then it starts over again, repeating and restating lies that dismantle my creative spirit. The tension between lie and truth, flesh and spirit, desire and hope.

Truth. 

“If you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will come to the Jewish people from another place, but you and your father’s family will be destroyed. Who knows, perhaps you have come to your royal position for such a time as this.” Esther 4:14

I am set a part for such a time as this. This day, this life I am moving about in the body that pumps the blood to my heart and let’s air into my lungs. This life I have been given was given to me for just such a time as this. My spirit, gifts, talents, voice, and soul are needed right here and right now. I am not a mistake and I most definitely belong at the table next to you, because my time here is not a mistake or glitch, it was set for a purpose. My words have a place. My heart has a beat. My art is needed. My soul is continually transforming. For such a time as this. Every moment I strike keys, move my pen, grab color, flip pages, kneel down, and lift hands high there is purpose. There is purpose in my days not just because of what I have been given, but who gave it all to me and for Him. There are many around me, beyond me, and surrounding me; such a great cloud of witnesses for such a time as this. There is no question even in the doubt, that what I have been given is meant to be used and its purpose as well as impact is beyond my comprehension. It is not about me, it is all for Him. How is my life to fit in the kingdom that lives here on earth, which is experienced in the midst of the devastation and chaos of the broken world? I may never know how my life is used for glory, but I can rest knowing that the strikes, moves, dips, flips, and sanctification are used in the kingdom work. A generation hungry for food and thirsty for drink and finding temporary satisfaction in all the wrong places, as I struggle to stay on my knees. There is a place for me, simply because I am alive. There is a seat for me here for such a time as this. 

Jesus came as a babe, lived, walked, taught, traveled, saw, healed, washed, and laid it down to conquer it all to raise up and save us all…for such a time as this. His coming, dying, raising, giving of Spirit, and promise to come again are all for such a time as this. There was purpose in all of his life, the timing of his physical coming into this world, it was all for such a time as this. Today. Right now and in Yesterday.

For such a time as this there is a time for everything under the sun. Nothing is wasted. Everything is used for something greater. Every move. Every sick day. Every sin. Every repentance. Every worship. Every craft. Every word. Every place. Every person. Every broken and beautiful thing in this world, is for such a time as this. It is hard in the broken and confused, but every moment of it is used. Every blessing and triumph no matter how superficial it feels, is used. A greater purpose and plan, one that I will never understand, for such a time as this. 

I sit at the table and I come offering what I have been given and open to what I am meant to receive. This life of mine is precious in the set a part of the nature of my Jesus. I come. I am here. Use me. I am here and I am listening.

- Hannah