Six Words to Change your Life

Last week in a staff meeting, my colleague, Gary Burton, told us about six words that had changed his life and the way he views ministry and success.

 

I’m a sucker for words, and I was having a rough day, so my ears perked up at what those words might be.  I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this:

 

 

Nothing to gain, nothing to prove. 

 

He explained that ever since he started making those words his motto in life, his motives have changed.  His own personal approval rating has changed.  His attitude toward the people he is called to love and serve has changed.  When he determines at the very beginning of the day that he has nothing to gain but Christ and nothing to prove to anyone else,  he can walk in rest, security and joy.

As I prepare for a book launch this week I am struck by the surreality of it all.  It’s been a lifetime + two years in the making.  The process has wrung me out and filled me up.  And this week feels like a culmination, but it’s really just the beginning of trying to get the silly thing out there into the big, wide world, where it can give hope to hurting people.  If I let myself, I could crumble beneath the weight of that endeavor.

 

My life is already filled with jobs and emotions that seem too heavy to carry on my own.  I have limited capacity for hauling around the Amazon rankings.  That’s why this little note lives on the wall of my office at home now.  It stares at me and tells the story of my inadequacy in everything except knowing Him.

 

 

I’ve already mentioned a million or so times that I’m a list girl.  So I added a list to remind me why I do what I do (you can see it if you click on the photo).

 

I’m so thankful that I can rest in His enoughness this week and always.  I’m grateful that by His grace, His words flow through weary writers and into a world in need.  By His grace.  He is good and sovereign and sufficient.  I am just me.

 

And that’s enough.

 

Bo