WOW! God Speaks!

Girls, I have been struggling, and I mean struggling for over a year now on the subject of being a speaker for women's groups.  Recently, pieces of the puzzle have fallen together so neatly that I really feel like I can look back on this past year of wondering and see where God has been leading me bit by bit.  And WOW!  I feel so free in the knowledge I now have!  If you are interested in seeing the progression of my "ah-hah" moments along the way, check out these blog entries in order: "Networking,"  "The Prayers of My Sisters,"  "A New (Old) Direction (Again),"  "Dog Days," "My First Speaking Gig," "Step by Step" and then "A Date With God."  If you just want the summary, read on...

The question I started out asking was whether or not I should pursue a mini career as a guest speaker for women's groups.  My thinking was thus: I have a HUGE heart for women's ministry, speaking is time-flexible and would allow me to be creative and still be a stay-at-home mom, and I would love to have a venue to sell my books.  It seemed like self promotion was a logical next step to the self-publishing process ("Networking", above).  Then I landed my first speaking "gig" ("Prayers of My Sisters," above).  My thoughts became thus:  What will I say?  Will it makes sense?  Will I be entertaining enough?  Will they like my stories?  Will I have a big zit on my nose for the talk?  What will I wear?  Will anyone buy a book?  What should I charge for a speaking fee?

Those questions weren't bad questions.  They were a perfectly natural human response to a new situation, especially the type of situation that most people have nightmares about: public speaking.  I was dually terrified and excited about the opportunity to give the talk and it went fairly well for a first attempt ("My First Speaking Gig", above).  I based my assessment of the talk on two criteria: 1. the audience seemed to enjoy my talk and 2. I sold a few books.  On the surface it seemed like a mild success.

But from the beginning of the whole process until now I have had a nagging feeling about this whole thing, as if something were not quite right.  I have been in prayer and asked some of my most trusted sisters in Christ to be in prayer with me on this topic throughout the year.  I have been on quite a journey with it ("Dog Days" and "Step by Step", above).  And then, after my first talk, came the question of whether I would ever do it again.  With the combination of the lack of leads I had for speaking gigs and the nagging feeling I had that something wasn't quite right, I just felt like I needed to step back (again) and see what God was trying to tell me in this situation ("A Date With God", above).

And God spoke.  In the crazy way that God speaks--through allowing a drawn-out struggle with a concept, through a long walk in the valley, through silence, through friends in Christ, through scripture, and through the wisdom of Christian leaders--so God spoke to me.

The proverbial "valley" was the first way God communicated to me.  It was in this valley that I spent the year struggling and grappling with the idea of being a speaker at all.  Doors were not exactly flying open.  Opportunities were not exactly laying themselves at my feet.  I began to wonder if this path was indeed the right one for me.  And this led to a year of questioning myself and questioning God.  I began to ask about God's specific will for my life.  If He didn't want me to be a speaker, what did He want me to be?  I knew He wanted me to be a wife and mom above anything else ("A New (Old) Direction (Again)", above) and I too wanted that more than anything.  But I have a stirring desire in me to do more too.  Throughout this year of questioning, God answered only with silence.  He made me wait.  And struggle.  And grapple.  There would be no easy answer.  There would be no: "MEGAN, THIS IS GOD.  YES, YOU SHOULD BE A SPEAKER."  OR "MEGAN, GOD HERE.  DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT."

Next, God used my reading of the book Crazy Love by Frances Chan.

Now there's a lot I could say about this book, some praise and some criticism.  But the point here is that God spoke to me through the reading of this book about one thing in particular: GLORY.  The question this book posed to me about my plans for my future was: Who is getting the GLORY?  One thing the book does well is remind the reader how big and worthy of praise God is and how small and insignificant we individuals really are compared to Him.  And, in light of my dreams of being a speaker, it caused me to question my motives.  Whose glory was I seeking?  Well, looking at the questions I asked myself in preparation for my first talk,  one can easily see that I was thinking almost entirely of myself.  It's not that picking out a cute outfit is a bad thing in preparing for a talk.  It's just that praying, "Lord, please keep me from making a fool out of myself!" might not be the most appropriate a prayer when preparing for a talk.  Why?  It makes the focus solely on me.  It's all about me.

The following Wednesday, at my church's weekday service, I felt led to confess my self-absorbtion to God. I told Him I had been making this whole thing about me: my success, my ambitions, ultimately my glory.  I  asked God to help me make the sole purpose of my talk to bring Him glory.  And then I told God that I would relinquish my ambitions to be a speaker and put them in His hands.  If He wanted me to be a speaker, He could open the doors and lay the opportunities at my feet.  That is how I would know if it was His will for my life or not.

Then I began to have conversations about this with my sisters in Christ.  While they affirmed my determination to make any effort be for God's glory, they did not readily affirm my choice to stop seeking speaking opportunities.  Rather, I heard from more than one of them on separate occasions, "You have to listen to last Sunday's sermon" which I had missed because I was working with the elementary kids that day.

After listening to the study I was reminded of something that I already knew.  Except that sometimes we know something (as in "yeah, yeah, I know that already") but we don't really know it (as in "walking in the belief of it").  The sermon reminded me that God does not necessarily have a linear will planned like a road map for my life.  As the pastor of my church put it, 90% of God's will for your life is written in the word of God.  90% of God's will for me consists of biblical statements like: "And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him" (Colossians 3:17).  Whatever we do.  Whether I ever get another opportunity to speak or not.  As Beth Moore puts it in her Daniel Study: "Our greatest purpose in life is to glorify God: to make Him famous in our lands.  Isaiah 26:8 says it perfectly: 'Your name and renown are the desire of our hearts.'"

My second speaking opportunity is lined up for a MOPs group this Friday.  I am equally exuberantly excited and horrifically nervous.  I don't know yet if I will ever speak publicly again after this opportunity. But I do know, beyond anything else, that my desire on Friday is that God would be glorified.