I Was Ruined for Anything Else

Have you ever seen God use you to impact eternity? He's using all of us all the time for His purposes, but has He ever let you see Him do it?

My freshman year of college I heard you could be a leader for Young Life. I really didn't know much about Young Life but heard you got to disciple girls and share your faith. I had wanted to do that for about a year. I had asked my youth pastor if I could disciple some junior high girls but I just don't think they knew what to do with me so nothing ever came of it. I got the impression that sharing the gospel and discipling people was just for missionaries and pastors. So when I heard I could do that in college, I was super excited. 

That year, though I wasn't the most mature person and definitely didn't (and still don't) have it all together, God did use me. He allowed me to see these 12 girls I had been investing time with give their lives to Christ and I got to lead my first Bible study. I could see these girls begin to change from the inside out which ruined me for doing anything else with my life. I saw God working first hand in peoples lives and He was using me. Little me who felt like I had nothing to offer. Me, who hadn't been seminary trained and had so much to learn. Me, weak and scared and desperately dependent on God's grace. I had never played a part of something so eternal before. And as a result that experience is the one I point to of how God called me into ministry. That is the exact point He gave me a passion to see Him use me over and over again. So when I read in Mark where Jesus calls His disciples and I see their amazement of God using them, ruining their life for anything else, I get it.

They were fishermen, I was a college student, neither highly respected or looked up to.
"As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." At once they left their nets and followed him."  Mark 1:16-18

Does it strike you as odd that Mark tells us so little here making it seem Jesus walked up to total strangers and they at once left their nets to follow Him. It did me. But it turns out this is not the first time Simon (Peter) and Andrew had met Jesus (John 1:35-39) and Luke 5 shows more of what happened at this drop your current direction in life call. This is when Jesus tells them to throw out the net and they catch such a huge number of fish that the boat begins sinking. They were astonished and repentant and Jesus then says, "Follow me." They got to see God in the flesh do something impossible through them and He invited them to be available for Him to do it through them for the rest of their life. They were ruined for anything else.

How have you let the Lord ruin you for His mission? What ways is He asking you to step out and be willing and available for Him to use? 

Simon Peter and Andrew (and a whole ton of onlookers) got to see God do the impossible because they were willing. God has a great story in store for you if you'll just trust Him and take the tiny step He's leading you to take. 

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I'm joining the beautiful ladies at Women Living Well, We are that Family, Raising Homemakers,Internet Cafe Devotions,  Proverbs14:1, Raising Mighty Arrows, Intentional.Me, Denise in Bloom, Leaving a Legacy, Thankful Thursday, Reflections of His Grace, To show them Jesus, Imperfect Prose.