Your Gentleness Is Making Me Great
Psalm 18: 31 For who is God, but the Lord?
And who is a rock, except our God?—
32 the God who equipped me with strength
and made my way blameless.
33 He made my feet like the feet of a deer
and set me secure on the heights.
34 He trains my hands for war,
so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
35 You have given me the shield of your salvation,
and your right hand supported me,
and your gentleness made me great.
36 You gave a wide place for my steps under me,
and my feet did not slip.
37 I pursued my enemies and overtook them,
and did not turn back till they were consumed.
I’m a person who has a tendency to want to live large. I can’t help it. Growing up, my stepfather always used to deride me by calling me “dramatic”. To me, it was the height of offense. I just couldn’t help being the way I was. It was like he was telling me that my very personality was fluff, unsubstantial, fake. Oh, there was no worse insult.
I was doing my driving stint on our trip to the ARC conference in Ohio last week, and in the quiet of my heart, God brought that to mind. He said to me, clear as day, “You know when he used to call you ‘dramatic’?” “Yes, Lord, I hated that.” “I know, I did too. You know why? Because you’re not dramatic. You’re wholehearted.”
I almost laughed out loud. WOW. What an entirely healing revelation. For years now, I’ve blamed myself, hated myself, for my strong personality. I have been made to feel, by myself and others and my own perceptions, that I’m like the proverbial millstone–that I have this tendency to hang on people’s necks and bring them down to the bottom of the river–that it’s all about me and my burdensome self. I’ve blamed it on my New York upbringing. I’ve blamed it on my “artsiness”. I’ve seen my weight struggles as a physical manifestation of my overbearingness.
But PRAISE JESUS–he revealed to me in a nanosecond what I’ve been waiting to hear my whole life. And then he brings this verse to me: “Your gentleness made me great.”
Mike Bickle wrote a book recently called “The Seven Longings of the Human Heart.” One of the chapters is “The Longing to Be Great”. He challenges that this is a universal longing in the human heart, one that is put there by God, and one that must not be repented of. How much time I wasted repenting of my longing to be great!
And my dear companions, I am not talking about fame. I have never, ever wanted to be famous. I hate, loathe, despise compliments, pats on the back, my name in magazines. That may surprise you. I really, really love to be invisible. Don’t get me wrong, from the spiritual parents in my life, I need to hear that they are proud of me, or blessed someone, or that I could do “X” better. Really, though, I’m not interested in any kind of accolade–my heart’s desire is to see the lost saved, and the saved matured. That’s it. I have no other life’s purpose than that. That includes my husband, my children, my artistic endeavors, everything. Please, God, at a performance, someday let someone come to me and say “What must I do to be saved?” and not “Hey, I love your voice.” Barf. Meet me in the discount CD rack. I hear B+V CDs are selling for 5 cents, thank God.
People like me are messy. They step on toes. The offend without meaning to. Are you like that? Do you tend to leave your bleeding, beating heart lying on your friends’ shoes? Yuck. I know. It sucks. But what else can I do? Try to be sensitive, sure. Measure my words, yes. But cut back on my wholeheartedness? Let me tell you, I’ve been trying out those scissors for the last 5 years and I’m through. No way, no more. I don’t mean this analogy in its fullness, but give me “Oz the Great and Powerful”, not the man behind the curtain.
Because I have always wanted to do BIG things. Go all the way. Do huge acts of spiritual violence. War in the Spirit. “Bend a bow of bronze.” Shake people up. Make them uncomfortable. Make people engage. Throw people, even without their consent, into Jesus’ victory train. Hold big, giant sickles and thresh the heck out of the harvest. I’m not interested in waiting until things get “nice” and my neighbors treat me “nicely” enough for me to feel “comfortable” sharing the gospel with them. Sometimes an “open door” is exposing a trembling heart to knowing it’s on the edge of the cliff of hell. Sometimes it’s a very un-pretty “wake up!!!”
You know what? I want to be a reckless teenager in the Lord, even when i’m 95. You ever see one of those people? They are dangerous. You don’t want to be on the wrong side of their prayers.
So now God’s expanding my vocabulary of risky behavior: be part of raising up a 24/7 house of prayer in New Jersey. Fast. Pray. Read 10 chapters a day (I’m trying). Oh, and in the meantime? This is what he’s saying to me: Waste your life at my feet–break it wide open, and waste the perfume of your love for me all over my feet.
And don’t get bogged down in the details, or the defeat. But when a little failure comes, get up, don’t even bother to brush yourself off or drink a cup of Gatorade–just go the next 5 miles, fall again, get up again, and “run, Forrest, run!”
Because I didn’t make you dramatic. I made you real. I made you wholehearted.
April 17th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Wow, what a sweet post. The very things which may come out of adaptations to hardship and or defenses against hurtful things are often full of God’s ways. Nothing is really wasted if you fully believe Romans 8:28. God really is weaving the fabric of our life together to create something glorious. It certainly works better if we cooperate with Him. But he who is faithful will bring to completion that which he has started.
You are a jewel Vesper – rough edges here and there (like the rest of us) but still a jewel. I’m grateful to have you in my life.
peace…the black dwarf
April 17th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
IM RUNNING ,IM RUNNING …..my wholehearted friend …it’s good to know I’m not the only lunatic out there ..Oh and guess what ?…The slashing ,trashing , threshing you talked about ….That’s what we do in prayer , man . The devil knows our names and he’S a-scarred a you so….. RUN! DO NOT WALK TO THE NEAREST PRAYER CLOSET AND KICK his HAIRY BUTT BACK TO THE ABYSS …WORSHIP LIKE THE UNDIGNIFIED JESUS FREAK YOU ARE ….Know that I’ll be right there with you and don’t ever feel the compulsion to be anything other than what HE CALLED YOU TO BE !!!! Rock on sista …
April 17th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Well you got me crying…tears of thankfulness and depth. The Lord has poured out such a deep healing. It is for freedom that you have been set free.
Go and serve the Lord, In Jesus name, Amen!
April 17th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Have you discovered the writings of St. Therese of Lisieux? She was a French cloistered nun who died at the age of 24 in 1897. (With Joan of Arc, she is the patron saint of France.)
Her mother superior (who was also her sister) asked her to write down the story of her life. She’s SO enthusiastic, so in love with Jesus, so over the top. As Protestants, we may find some of what she says a bit odd, but her heart is so centered on the Lord and so eager to find ways to express her love. I find it fun to read her teenager-like enthusiasm and her willingness to look foolish to the world as she expresses her love.
And what I find especially remarkable is that for the last 9 years of her life she experienced dry prayer times. It should encourage us that it’s possible to pray wholeheartedly even in the desert.
April 18th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I enjoyed your blog as it definitely rang of new found healing in your heart. I have experience something similar but yet a little different.
As a child I was incredibly dramatic. You think I am bad now…HA! Throughout my childhood into my teen years I was very animated but not in the sense of being “wholehearted” as you speak of. My drama was performance – my only way of having my voice heard and full attention given to me. I am sure my parents, Vinny, and Mary Anne could testify to this.
In high school particularly, I was very “dramatic” – literally, in the sense they I thrust myself in theatre and acting where my personality could be better appreciated. Yet I also was an entertainer among my peers – the animated friend who never stopped performing.
When I was in my first of college at Valley Forge, I had an encounter with Jesus that I will forget. Continuing in the tradition of being “drama mama”, I found myself in a popular click, called “THE JERSEY GIRLS”. We comprised of 4 girls on campus who were all flirty, animated and to our secret shame, uncompromisingly patriotic of our homeland: Jersey. We were cute and loud and darn it – boys liked us. Consequently, girls hated us.
I was the performer of the group – the loudest and most dramatic with my pink studded belt and my tight fit jeans to match my ELEMENT 101 (
April 21st, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Viggo Mortensen once said, “There’s no excuse to be bored. Sad, yes. Angry, yes. Depressed, yes. Crazy, yes. But there’s no excuse for boredom, ever.”
WOW. Just found that on the website of a branch of our sister church, Scum of the Earth. AWESOME.