In the Kingdom of God, obedience is worth more than skill. God is more than able to make up for our deficiencies. These are some things that I've known to be true on a mind level, but lately God has worked in me to help sink into my heart. When we go on our own skill, the best we can do is be something that the world could have produced on it's own. Thus we have people that do "good" things, whether by temperament, a guilty conscience or civic duty. We end up reflecting ourselves, in all our human fallibility, and will disappoint those who see us.

But God has not called us to run on our own skill. He has called us to obey his calling. His calling is not always comfortable, nor is it always tame. Regardless of how strange or difficult his calling is, he will provide for it to be fulfilled. When we are in tune with the Holy Spirit and obeying him, we don't run on the stuff of this world. The stuff of this world doesn't produce superhuman results.

Instead we run on the power that comes from daily relying on God. His daily grace empowers us to do things that aren't humanly possible. That is where we will see the world changed. It is this grace that allows the Brooklyn Tabernacle to reach out to the brokenness around them. This grace that holds Christians up under persecution. This is the grace that calls missionaries to obscure countries to translate the Bible for languages without written form.

And when people follow this calling, it turns heads. Reactions vary from amazement to befuddlement to anger. As a missionary and preacher's kid I've witnessed the power of people following God's call. To see the heart and anointing of a person surrendered to Christ is an amazing thing. It leaves a hunger for more than man can do on his own. For those who accept it, it shines a hope for greater things in this world of darkness. And that is a hope that I am grateful to have, and want to share.

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