Deep as a Spear is Long

As soon as I post the words "I want to be a missionary", a litany of old lies scream against me. "Who are you?" They yell accusations against my mind, my personality, my character, and my heart. These lies resurface in different forms and different ways, but their source can always be identified by the condemnation and shame they bring.


Who am I? Not someone qualified. Not someone full of charisma. Someone quiet, enthusiastic if encouraged, but subdued if misunderstood. A writer who pens passionately what I seldom voice in words, although given the opportunity, I pour out my heart. A mother with four young children who are at times needy, boisterous, funny, disrespectful, and poignantly hungry for all the love they can hold.


Who am I? Not someone anointed with healing the sick, raising the dead, or prophesying things to come, although I do hear the Lord and see the love pouring from His eyes. No, I'm not full of courage and faith all the time, and I can't recite all the wonderful evidence that proves how God framed the world and called us into existence.


But who I am doesn't matter in light of Whose I am. I am Christ's. And because I am Christ's, I am a daughter of God. I belong to the Most High King who stands alone over every principality and power. I live beneath the shadow of His hand, and His Word is etched into my heart. When I was a teenager, reading the Chronicles of Narnia, I asked Him to do what C.S. Lewis wrote: "Daddy, inscribe Your word into my heart deep as a spear is long so that nothing can ever erode it, nothing can ever chisel over it."


God's done it. When those lies of the enemy attack, His word comes back to me. "For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty, and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are." (I Corinthians 1:26-28)


When the attacks of the enemy come, I throw my whole weight onto my Daddy's promises. "I'm not who I want to be. I screw up and make such a mess of so many things! I need You just to keep me breathing. But I'm chasing after You, and You promised to finish everything You begin in my life. You promise that Your calling is irrevocable. You promise You will be everything I need so You can fulfill Your plans for my life!"


And, Daddy, I believe You!!!