What could an ordinary girl like you possibly do for an extraordinary God like ours? How could he ever use you when you feel like you have absolutely nothing special to offer. Let me tell you something, God has chosen you. You are the one he wants to use.
Why? Because you have precisely what God needs to do his work.
What do you have? An empty space for his power to reside. When you’re not full of who you are and what you can do, there’s space for God’s power to do what only he can do. That’s all he needs. Space.
Girl, give him space today and watch him use you for his purposes!
This morning I heard the story of a 19 year old girl named Florrie Evans. You may not know her name, and you’ll never meet her, because she died 56 years ago. Her name won’t likely show up in any history books, yet she changed hundreds of thousands of lives when she was just a teenager.
Florrie was an incredibly ordinary and shy girl living in Wales, an island just west of England. One Sunday evening in 1904 at Church, she was so moved by the power of the Holy Spirit prompting her, that she stood up and boldly said these 8 words: “I love Jesus Christ with all my heart.” She hadn’t planned it. It wasn’t scripted. It wasn’t eloquent. It was simply filled with joy. And these 8 words, spoken in faith and joy by an ordinary 19 year old girl, started a revival. A revival that swept through the entire country, bringing over 100,000 people to Jesus in the first 6 months.
During the time of revival the police were left with virtually nothing to do and the courts were empty. Saloons and bars shut down for lack of business. Old debts, many long forgotten, were paid off in full. Profanity disappeared. It was said that horses everywhere were in complete confusion. They had become accustomed to responding to their master’s profane shouts and kicks and cursing, but when their masters stopped yelling and cussing at them, the horses didn’t know what to do.
Hmmm, makes me wonder, would your car know how to drive down the interstate if you weren’t yelling at the idiots on the road with you? Would your husband know what to do if you didn’t give him the side eye, cold shoulder, or snarky attitude? Would Facebook even be in business if we all stopped scrolling and started living?
In 1904, lives radically changed. How people talked changed. What they did changed. Where they went changed. God was in every detail of this change. And where did it all start? One 19 year old ordinary girl who had an empty space for the power of God to fill. And when he filled that space, she simply responded in joy. The rest … well God did it all.
God’s power changes people, not us. But he sure loves to use ordinary people with space for his power.
Digging a little deeper into the story of Florrie, I found an account that she had just accepted Jesus the week before. She had been hesitatnt to submit her life to God, because she was afraid of what God would ask her to do. The pastor told her to go home, shut herself in her room, accept Jesus as her savior, and commit to responding to any prompting she received from the Holy Spirit. And it ends up, God would only ask her to stand up and share her love of God with complete joy. He would do everything from there.
It’s been 119 years since Florrie Evans spoke those 8 words that started a revival. And think about the generations that have been impacted since. Think of the children today who know about Jesus simply because their great, great, great-grandparents were overcome with the love of Jesus at a revival that changed an entire country.
1 Corinthians 1: 26-28, “Remember that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important.”
Plain and simple, God wants to use you! He doesn’t give a flying flip about what you have and what you can do, he simply wants to use you. Yes, you the one who feels unimportant. You, the one who feels overlooked. You, the one who feels they have nothing to offer. You, the one who has never been chosen first for anything other than chores. You, the one who never quite feels like they fit in or belong.
That empty space within you which you’ve been desperately trying to fill has been left empty for reasons beyond your comprehension. That’s God’s space. You wonder why you’re still single? God wants that space! You question why you don’t have what others have? God wants that space. You’ve been trying to understand why nothing you do ever makes you feel completely whole … yip, that’s God’s space.
That space is all he needs to use you for things bigger than your wildest dreams. Things so big they will far outlive you. Things with eternal impact.
There’s only two things you have to do:
- Stop trying to fill that empty space.
- Invite God into that space.
What will he do with that space in you? He will fill it with his power. He will use plain ol’ ordinary you in extraordinary ways. But, it won’t look extraordinary when it’s happening. It may simply look like saying what God puts on your heart, and saying it with joy, “I love Jesus Christ with all my heart.” And that spark could start a fire that changes thousands of lives in your lifetime, and countless more beyond your lifetime.
Imagine getting to heaven and being greeted by a line of people there to tell you how your empty space was where God worked in their lives. How your simple words spoken in joy, declaring love for Jesus, forever impacted their soul.
If you’ve been asking what could you possibly do to make a difference … this … you could do this. You could keep that space open for God and let him prompt you to speak in joy and love.
And this really ordinary girl with some empty spaces in her life has just gotta tell you, “I love Jesus Christ with all my heart”. How about you?
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