Be the Author of Your Own Life

I start typing this today by taking a deep breath because I have something huge hanging on my heart.

So, what does your life book look like? Yeah, I don’t know what mine looks like either. Just taking it one day at a time, sister.

This past Sunday’s sermon at our church got me thinking about that, again. The sermon was focused on our OLW, “MADE”. (Yeah, our church chose a One Little Word for 2014. How cool is that?)

This year, as a church community, its been all about being MADE in His image. Being MADE to do more, be more, for Him and because of Him. Yesterday our pastor focused on followers of Christ being MADE to make disciples. Like Simon Peter.

I think to myself, I am not Peter. Peter was the rock on which Jesus built his church.

[Upon meeting Jesus for the first time, Jesus said, “Your name is Simon, son of John—but you will be called Cephas (Peter).” (John 1:41-42) Then, later He says to Peter, “Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church…” (Matthew 16:18-19)]

Simon (which means a stone) was like all of us, a broken human, and yet, Jesus used him anyway and turned him into Peter, the rock in which His church was built.

Peter was loved by Jesus. He was in Jesus’ trusted inner-circle. Even so, Peter had his moments of doubt. There was that little issue when Peter denied (three times) knowing Jesus at his arrest (Matt. 26:31-75). That was bad. Oh, and the time he almost drown in the Sea of Galilee when he lost faith for a moment while walking on water with Jesus.

How do we share our faith? What is your calling? What is mine? These are questions I have.

There is one thing I do know. Each of us have a different big picture calling. Not everyone is called to be Peter.  We are probably called to do more than we do but don’t listen when the phone rings.

• We are all called to share the gospel. How do we do that? Tell our story to others. We all have a story, that one moment, that confirmed our faith. Be it small or huge, we have it. Share it with someone.
• Be kind. Simple. Show grace and compassion for everyone. Yes, everyone.
• Stay in the Word. The more you are in the Word, the closer you are to Christ, the stronger and more confident your are to share the good news.
• Don’t compare your book to someone’s best seller. Not all of us can be a best selling author, a Christian speaker, a Pastor, or a missionary in Haiti. We probably won’t lead the lame to walk by touch in the name of Christ (that was Peter’s doing). No. But we all have something to say and we will touch someone’s life.

Peter was far from perfect in his faith-walk. Despite huge mistakes, in the end, Peter’s heart was in the right with Jesus.

Maybe I (we) are more like Peter than I thought?

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COOL RESOURCES | Shmoop is an awesome little internet tool that puts the Bible (and other subjects) in layman’s terms. I am re-reading the book “Crazy Love” by Francis Chan. Enough with the church gimmicks, let’s get real with God!