The Microphone I Almost Handed Back at Tuesday Night Group
The leader of our Tuesday night meeting asked me last week if I would share my testimony at the anniversary dinner, the one where the newcomers bring their families and the coffee runs out by seven. I said yes before I thought about it, the way you say yes to something that sounds like an honor. Then I lay awake running through every reason it was a mistake. My story doesn't have a dramatic bottom, no jail cell, no ambulance. I don't have the vocabulary the men with seminary degrees have when they stand up front. I pictured myself at that microphone with nothing worth the room's attention, and I almost called the leader back to tell him to find someone more qualified to mean something up there.
That word qualified is the one that kept circling. I have spent most of my sober life believing usefulness has to be earned by being impressive first, that God only hands the microphone to people who have already proven they can hold it well. Moses felt exactly what I felt, standing at a burning bush instead of a folding table. God had just called him by name to go speak to the most powerful man in the world, and his answer was not gratitude. "Then Moses said to the LORD, 'O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue'" (Exodus 4:10, NKJV). I read that and felt less alone, a man built the same way I am, arguing his own inadequacy right to God's face.
God did not argue Moses out of his weakness or pretend it wasn't real. He simply answered it with Himself. "Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say" (Exodus 4:12, NKJV). He did not promise Moses would suddenly become eloquent on his own. He promised His own presence would fill exactly the gap Moses had just described. That is a different offer than the one I keep trying to give myself, which is months of rehearsing until I finally feel ready. God was never waiting on ready. He was waiting on willing.
Paul spent years being the smartest man in most rooms he walked into, and even he had to let go of the idea that his own sufficiency was the qualifying factor. "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God" (2 Corinthians 3:5, NKJV). I used to hear that as false modesty. I think now it is the plainest description of how this actually works, that the sufficiency was never supposed to originate in me, so I have been failing an audition for a role I was never asked to fill on my own strength.
Paul says something even harder to swallow about who God tends to pick for the microphone. "But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty" (1 Corinthians 1:27, NKJV). I kept looking for the version of myself with a seminary vocabulary and a clean testimony, and Scripture is telling me plainly that the version standing at that microphone with a shaking voice and an ordinary story might be exactly the one He intends to use.
Zerubbabel was staring at a job that looked impossible to a man of his own size and resources, and the word that came to him did not point to his skill at all. "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the LORD of hosts" (Zechariah 4:6, NKJV). Human reasoning keeps trying to inventory my qualifications before it will let me walk to the front of a room. The Spirit does not run that inventory. He shows up in the gap where it comes up short, which is precisely where His strength has room to be seen. Paul heard the same thing directly from God about the thorn he begged to have removed. "And He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me" (2 Corinthians 12:9, NKJV). Made perfect in weakness, not despite it. I have been treating my inadequacy like the obstacle blocking the plan, when it may be the very room the plan needs to work in.
What finally steadied me was not talking myself into confidence I did not have. It was remembering whose life is actually doing the talking now. "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:20, NKJV). I am still going to stand at that microphone in October feeling as unqualified as I feel tonight, and I am starting to believe that is fine, because the story was never mine to carry alone.
I am keeping the date on the calendar. God is alive tonight, and He already knows every word you are afraid you won't find when it's your turn to speak. He has a plan for you that was never waiting on you to become impressive first, and He will never leave you standing at that microphone by yourself.
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Scriptures used (NKJV): Exodus 4:10; Exodus 4:12; 2 Corinthians 3:5; 1 Corinthians 1:27; Zechariah 4:6; 2 Corinthians 12:9; Galatians 2:20.
That word qualified is the one that kept circling. I have spent most of my sober life believing usefulness has to be earned by being impressive first, that God only hands the microphone to people who have already proven they can hold it well. Moses felt exactly what I felt, standing at a burning bush instead of a folding table. God had just called him by name to go speak to the most powerful man in the world, and his answer was not gratitude. "Then Moses said to the LORD, 'O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue'" (Exodus 4:10, NKJV). I read that and felt less alone, a man built the same way I am, arguing his own inadequacy right to God's face.
God did not argue Moses out of his weakness or pretend it wasn't real. He simply answered it with Himself. "Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say" (Exodus 4:12, NKJV). He did not promise Moses would suddenly become eloquent on his own. He promised His own presence would fill exactly the gap Moses had just described. That is a different offer than the one I keep trying to give myself, which is months of rehearsing until I finally feel ready. God was never waiting on ready. He was waiting on willing.
Paul spent years being the smartest man in most rooms he walked into, and even he had to let go of the idea that his own sufficiency was the qualifying factor. "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God" (2 Corinthians 3:5, NKJV). I used to hear that as false modesty. I think now it is the plainest description of how this actually works, that the sufficiency was never supposed to originate in me, so I have been failing an audition for a role I was never asked to fill on my own strength.
Paul says something even harder to swallow about who God tends to pick for the microphone. "But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty" (1 Corinthians 1:27, NKJV). I kept looking for the version of myself with a seminary vocabulary and a clean testimony, and Scripture is telling me plainly that the version standing at that microphone with a shaking voice and an ordinary story might be exactly the one He intends to use.
Zerubbabel was staring at a job that looked impossible to a man of his own size and resources, and the word that came to him did not point to his skill at all. "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the LORD of hosts" (Zechariah 4:6, NKJV). Human reasoning keeps trying to inventory my qualifications before it will let me walk to the front of a room. The Spirit does not run that inventory. He shows up in the gap where it comes up short, which is precisely where His strength has room to be seen. Paul heard the same thing directly from God about the thorn he begged to have removed. "And He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me" (2 Corinthians 12:9, NKJV). Made perfect in weakness, not despite it. I have been treating my inadequacy like the obstacle blocking the plan, when it may be the very room the plan needs to work in.
What finally steadied me was not talking myself into confidence I did not have. It was remembering whose life is actually doing the talking now. "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:20, NKJV). I am still going to stand at that microphone in October feeling as unqualified as I feel tonight, and I am starting to believe that is fine, because the story was never mine to carry alone.
I am keeping the date on the calendar. God is alive tonight, and He already knows every word you are afraid you won't find when it's your turn to speak. He has a plan for you that was never waiting on you to become impressive first, and He will never leave you standing at that microphone by yourself.
---
Scriptures used (NKJV): Exodus 4:10; Exodus 4:12; 2 Corinthians 3:5; 1 Corinthians 1:27; Zechariah 4:6; 2 Corinthians 12:9; Galatians 2:20.
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