Really God?

I woke up thankful today.  Not thankful for the usual stuff… family, possessions, freedom, etc., but thankful for the ministry God has given me.  I’m blown away.  I am now the pastor of First Baptist Church of Longview, Washington.  How again did I come to this opportunity?  Really God?

I could tell you all the reasons I shouldn’t be here, but then you might not respect me as much.  I could tell you about my inadequacies and all of the ways that I “don’t fit the mold.”  I could point out that my experience was weird… a worship pastor turned church planter… now become a large church pastor.  How did I come to this position?  Seven staff members?  Really God?

I remember a few years ago feeling a call to go “where no one else is working,” as Paul put it in 2^nd Corinthians 10:16.  And now, here I am, thirty hours from “home” in the “least reached” portion of the United States.  I know that God called me here as a part of something huge… perhaps even another great awakening.  I know God has big plans for the Northwest.  I feel it in my soul.  The crazy thing is that He called ME here to be a part of His big plans, perhaps even to help lead this move of His.  God called me to one of the bigger churches in the region… a church with crazy potential.  As if I were some great evangelist or amazing leader.  God, couldn’t you have found someone better? Really God? 

Who am I?  I am but dust.  I am an unknown pastor.  I am a nobody in the twitter-verse with less than a hundred followers so far.  My name would not appear in the “Who’s Who” list of Christian leaders, if there were such a thing.  I was unknown in Missouri.  I am unknown in Washington.  I have no desire to be known… unless being known is a necessary evil that comes with doing great things in Christ. 

And so here I am on the cusp, I believe, of a great move of God, and I believe God wants to use me in a BIG way.  Why else would He have placed me in such a position of influence and potential as I now find myself.  It’s crazy.  Me?  Really God?

Lord, I surrender to Your plan.  I have nothing You need.  All I can promise is that I will strive with everything I have to follow your lead.  Nothing You ask of me will I refuse.  I don’t deserve to be here.  I have done nothing to earn this opportunity, therefore I will not live as if I were entitled to it.  Instead, I lay it back down at Your feet.  I return what You have given me.  Like Moses, only in the fact that I feel inadequate, and that I offer you this rod of mine, hoping to take it up again as the Rod of God.

I am Yours.  Lead me.  Really God.