Why I'm Here

So, today an amazing thing happened.  We were doing our Bible lesson.  We are learning about David and we were wrapping up the story of King David and Bathsheba.  There were awkward questions (my favorite being, "Miss Nelson, Bathsheba was married to Uriah for a long time before she met David.  How could she have been married to him all that time and not gotten pregnant, but she only knew David for a little while and she did?" To which I responded, "That's a good question for your mom...") and some misunderstandings ("Miss Nelson, it says he wanted Uriah to go in and lie with his wife.  How would lying to his wife make her have a baby?") but all in all it was pretty uneventful.  

Today we were talking about Nathan the prophet's parable and David's repentance and one of my kids raises his hand and asks me what to do when you doubt God.  And so we talked about that quite a bit and about sin and then the same kid raises his hand again and asks what exactly he has to do in order to accept Jesus into his heart.  And I told him you have to believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that He came to earth, lived a perfect life, and died for our sins.  That He took our sin on Himself and died the death that we deserve and then rose again.  And then I told him that you have to ask Jesus to be your Savior and come into your heart.  So then we prayed and I told him that I would say it and if he said it in his heart and meant it, that He would be saved.  And he looked at me and said, "Miss Nelson, I actually already prayed it while you were answering another question.  Is that okay?"

Praise God!  This kid comes from a Christian home and was one that I had assumed had a rock solid faith...and his questions about doubt and being assured of salvation threw me a bit.  But God is soooo good.  Unbelievably good.  And He used me and my flustered words and what felt like unclear rambling to reach that student's heart.  Maybe he was already saved and just needed some reassurance or maybe he wasn't and today was the first time he really asked Jesus into his heart.  Either way, this is why I came.  As what was supposed to be a quick lesson about a parable and consequences for our sin turned into an hour lesson (and consequently cut our Reading lesson in half), I found myself thinking about why God called me here.  This is why.  Yes, I feel inadequate and insecure and incapable of doing the job of a missionary and a teacher and pretty much anything else I'm asked to do (which was only compounded when the conversation eventually led to questions about the end times to which most of my answers were, "I don't know.  I don't understand that either.  I don't know." and especially when my answer was "I don't know" and then a little 9 year-old would raise their hand and answer instead), but God didn't call me because I'm eloquent or because I'm a crazy good evangelist or because I'm an especially gifted person.  He called me because He is powerful and is working through me in spite of my weaknesses and abilities.  May I be made weak so that His strength and power shines through.  And that's exactly what this was.  This had nothing to do with me and everything to do with Him.

Praise God!