Within you is something more than you have ever known or realized. Power is in you. Strength is in you. Wisdom is in you. Life changing love is in you. Exactly what is needed for the situation and circumstances you face is right inside of you already.

As a follower of Christ, God has offered his Spirit to dwell within you. That Spirit is what guides you when you can’t see the way. That Spirit is what nudges you within to confirm or deny that which you do not know with your head. That Spirit is what gives you hope and strength when you feel there is none. That Spirit is what puts you in the right place at the right time for exactly what you need. That Spirit is an advocate who is FOR you, not against you.

And as if that wasn’t already good enough, this Spirit God has given you comes with GIFTS! Gifts that give your life meaning and purpose. Gifts that set you apart to do something special. Gifts that guide you to the life God envisioned for you.

The question is, have the gifts within you settled? Have they been going unused for so long you don’t even know what’s inside you anymore?

While you may not fully know what’s inside of you, God put it there, so he knows. And he knows he doesn’t want it to go to waste. He knows within you is the answer to so many of these problems. Within you is the hope someone else desperately needs. Within you is the power to make some things happen, and it’s time for them to be happening up in here!

So, what does God do when he knows you’ve got it in you, but it’s settled to the bottom because you haven’t been using it? OH, HE STIRS IT UP!

Yes, just like sugar at the bottom of a pitcher of sweet tea, it needs to be stirred. The surface level doesn’t even know whats deep within until it’s stirred up.

So here comes trouble. Here comes disturbance in your calm, little, protected life. Things start falling apart, plans start failing, people start acting crazy and doing stupid stuff. Everything’s a mess and nothing is in it’s place anymore. Oh yeah girl, it looks to me like you got stirred up! And in the stirring, that which had settled within you is now moving!

2 Timothy 1: 6 says “Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you.”

Stir it up. And when you don’t stir it up yourself and you just settle for what’s easy, life has a way of getting stirred up for you! Why is that? Because God doesn’t want the gifts of his Spirit to go wasted. And they go wasted when life is calm and predictable.

As humans we settle into patterns that become ruts and we go through our days with glazed over eyes and shallow breaths. I’m just dragging my butt out of bed because I have to, but you better believe I did it at the last possible second. I’m just here checking boxes, going through the motions, doing the bare minimum to get by. Throwing the kids some food, hauling them to school, doing my work, throwing some more food at hungry people, cleaning up the messes, and going to bed exhausted knowing tomorrow I do it all again. I’m just hoping things will eventually get better, but I’m not sure how that’s going to happen because I’m not willing to do anything different.

Oh honey, God sees that and says “oh heck to the no … she’s not going to let what I put within her just settle to the bottom like that. I gotta stir this up!”

All stirred up means what’s been going unused and settled to the bottom suddenly gets brought to the top and mixed all within. Here in the uncertainty, here in the hardship, here in the falling apart and wild mixing, the gifts within us get stirred up we start doing things we didn’t think we had the power or strength to do. How incredibly sweet!

Yes girl, stir it up!

You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only option. You didn’t know how much you could pray until prayer was all you had. You didn’t know how fierce you could be until the Mama Bear had to come out in you. You didn’t know you had the ability to rise up and speak with such power and anointing until you felt you just couldn’t be quiet for another moment.

Well, that’s what happens when things get stirred up. You discover what’s inside of you that settled to the bottom. If you’re not willing to do the stirring on your own, God allows things to come in and touch your life in a way that will get you all stirred up. And through that stirring you realize the value of what you have within.

God didn’t create you to be some fragile, untouchable girl to sit up on a shelf and look pretty. You’re not a china doll! You’re a real life girl created to live this one and only life as only you can, and you’ll never know all that is inside of you if it’s never stirred up!

Did you know the feeling of anxiety is the exact same feeling as excitement? It feels the same within your body. When you tell yourself that turning of your stomach and the tingling in your fingers is anxiety, then your body turns on the alarms and goes into protection mode. However, when you tell yourself that same exact feeling of churning in your stomach and tingling of your fingers is excitement, then your body responds with energy! You get to decide!

I feel excitement all the time. You know why? Because I tell myself God is for me, not against me, and I have absolutely no reason to fear. And when I don’t have to be afraid of it, I can get excited about it. Excited to see exactly what I am capable of through the power of Christ who lives in me. Excited to see exactly what good plans God has had for me all along. Excited to see how God is going to use this extreme crap-fest for something remarkably good in the future because it’s all fertilizer for us to grow.

Read the next verse. After 2 Timothy 1:6 which says “Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you …”, then comes verse 7 “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and self-discipline.”

This is what’s inside of you sister. This is the spirit God has placed within you. If you don’t feel power, if you don’t feel love, if you don’t feel self-discipline, it’s not because you don’t have it … it’s because it’s settled. Now, you decide, you either start stirring that up yourself, or let God do the stirring. Either way, God’s desire is not for what you have within you to go wasted!

You have the ability to get healthy and be more disciplined than you ever knew. Some of us never tap into that self-discipline until the doctor gives us the bad news, then we’re stirred up and realize what we could have been doing all along.

You have the ability to live according to what is most important. Some of us never tap into that power until what is most important is threatened.

Isn’t it strange how during some of life’s greatest hardships, what’s truly important becomes sweeter? You suddenly appreciate time like you’ve never appreciated it before. You suddenly love like never before. Your eyes are fully opened to the blessings you have today, knowing they could be gone tomorrow. You see life from a different perspective in the storm and it becomes sweeter. Why? Because it got stirred up. Just like the pitcher of sweet tea with all the sugar at the bottom, it requires stirring sometimes. The sweetness of life settles. The power, love and self-disciple God gave us settles when unused.

Don’t let the gifts of the Spirit go unused in your life. Stir them up. Dig deep. Let nothing settle to the bottom my sister. Use it all!

Use that power. Use that love. Use that self-discipline. It’s already in you!