Why Can't We Just Get Along? by Shelley Hendrix

Author:Shelley Hendrix
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780736948654
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers

I used to try so hard to be the kind of woman I thought God wanted me to be. I thought He wanted me to be a quiet, good-at-everything-domestic wife and mom. I tried very hard to be that woman and felt very inadequate around the women for whom this came easily. I believed for a long time that in order for me to be acceptable, I had to be perfect. This will exhaust the best of us.

I tried to operate in the gift of mercy (I guess I thought it was the most feminine and spiritual of the seven gifts), but often felt drained by the output of that energy. You know why? Because I was bringing my own energy and power to each of these circumstances. As I began to learn how God made me and began to use those gifts He gave me on purpose, everything began to change; and one of the biggest changes was in how much I could enjoy being around the women I had previously tried to emulate. Now I could celebrate them instead.

Whose power source are you plugging into?

When God first called me to ministry, one of the first people I spoke to about the calling was a pastor named Jim Law. Jim is very wise and also very funny, so when he speaks I know I’m about to become wiser or get a good laugh. Either way it’s a win, so I listen intently.

Jim said something back in 2004 that has never left me. He said, “Shelley, what God initiates, God will sustain. So if God has called you, then He will sustain you—He’ll give you the resources, the finances, the energy, and the wisdom to perform that which He has called you to do. But the opposite holds true as well: What man initiates, man must sustain. So if you get outside of the Spirit’s leadership, and you begin to pursue even good things in your own energy, then the pressure to sustain it rests on you alone.” He had my attention. I definitely want to allow the Spirit to fully operate with His power in my life. It scares me to death to think of how things will go if I forget this principle and I try to make things happen—even things I’m gifted for—in my own power.

Remember that these seven motivating forces are gifts! Don’t treat them like they are anything less. Don’t allow yourself to see them as crosses you must bear just because you may find it challenging to accept how someone else views a situation or handles a responsibility. When someone sees or perceives or feels differently than you, realize it just might be the lens through which she views life. What could happen if we all decided to give grace to other people for where they are on their walk with the Lord? We’re all at different places of maturity and we’ve all had different experiences. What if we began to take this into

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