There is a prayer we’ve all prayed, I’m sure:
“Lord, use me! It’s not about me; it’s all about you!”
But what does this prayer really mean?
My husband and I started evangelizing right after we got married. I was very confident in who I was in the Lord at the time. I had just graduated from Christian Life College, I had a personal relationship with God, and I often prayed, “I must decrease so that You can increase!”
However, as our ministry sprouted, I became less and less sure of who I was in the Lord. I was becoming very self-conscious. I didn’t know how an evangelist’s wife was supposed to act, behave, or even look!
I began to look at all of the things I wasn’t good at, all of the things I thought evangelists’ wives should be good at. As a result, any time I was asked to minister in any form, I became so apprehensive, so nervous.
Although I prayed, “Lord, less of me and more of You,” my actions didn’t reflect that. On the contrary, they showed that I was too focused on what others would think of me, even too focused on how I viewed myself! My actions revealed that I was far from being Kingdom-minded.
Oh, sure . . . If it was comfortable for me, I’d do it! But the moment I had to step out of my comfort zone? Oh no.
One night, the Lord spoke to me so clearly. He said, “Every time I ask something of you, it’s with a purpose. It’s not for your image. It’s because I need you to usher in my presence, to deliver a word, or to simply show my love.”
I felt so convicted. How could I be so self-centered and prideful as to take the Lord’s plan into my own hands? I prayed that He would use me . . . and then denied Him every time.
There are plenty of people in the Bible who truly understood what it meant to live a life so full of God that nothing of themselves was left.
David.
David was always the last to be thought of. In becoming the king or the giant’s slayer, he was always the last to be thought of. He was a simple shepherd boy. As he went to fight Goliath, he could’ve easily turned around and left — and thought to himself, “There is no way I’m going to fight this giant and kill him. I don’t care who chose me to come here, I’m leaving!” You see, he was the SMALLEST of his brothers. He could’ve focused on all of his inabilities — all of the things he couldn’t do — but he didn’t. He knew that God would take his inabilities and strengthen him. It wasn’t about Him, it was about God. And so . . . he killed that giant.
The Boy with the Fish and Bread.
When the little boy who had five loaves of bread and two fishes came to Jesus, he gave it all to Him. There were hundreds upon hundreds of people there standing in front of Jesus so hungry! The multitude was probably talking amongst itself saying, “What is THAT small amount of food gonna
What do these characters in the Bible have in common? They were asked by God to do something new, something scary maybe, something out of their comfort zone! But they responded with a YES! And this resulted in God receiving glory for His miraculous works.
We have to push ourselves aside and truly understand that prayer that we always pray: “Lord! Use me. Less of me and more of You!” It means that we will do whatever it takes to answer the call — to tell someone about Jesus.
Once we truly understand what it means to be all about God, this world will be flipped upside-down.
Once we understand that it’s not about us, we’ll talk to the cashier at the grocery store or the waitress at the restaurant and let them know that Jesus loves them.
Once we understand that it’s not about us, we won’t be afraid to pray for people on the streets and introduce them to the presence of God that you and I have been so blessed to experience.
The Lord is coming back so soon. There are so many people who are lost, looking in all the wrong places.
WE HAVE THE HOPE; we have the answer; we have exactly what they’re looking for! And once we understand that it’s all about Him, we’ll start telling everyone we meet about Him.