February 2010 Newsletter

NOT RELYING ON MY OWN STRENGTH

During the last three months I've found out just how limited my own strength is. I find myself exhausted from trying to put together an English program from scratch in a place where communication, travel, and scheduling are all challenging tasks. My to-do list keeps growing and so does the number of relationships that must be nurtured and maintained. My stamina is depleted by constant transitions; frustration crops up due to lack of communication and fuzzy expectations; and I fight a constant battle to maintain flexibility in the face of plans that seem to often go awry.

If this English teaching program depended totally on me and my abilities, I'm afraid it would fail to live up to expectations or would soon fall apart. However, I'm confident that it is God's program, and that he is the one maintaining it and forming it into an instrument to be used for his purposes. He doesn't expect me to make everything happen. This program doesn't rely on my strength but on his. How reassuring it is to know that God is holding it all together and that at those places where I feel most inadequate, ill-prepared or just plain exhausted, that's where his strength comes through and where his power is made perfect.

As the English program coordinator I can often fall into the trap of believing that my role is central and that this program is relying on my creativity, my knowledge and my strength. But over and over God reminds me that it is his program. He is at the center keeping it all together. I don't have to strive and strain to make it happen; I simply have to rest in Him and be obedient to take the next step, to do the task at hand, and to rely on his strength rather than my own.