For the first time in years, I felt complete peace at a speaking event. I’ve spent so long asking God to teach me how to do this–to deliver me from self-consciousness, pride, self-exultation, and fear. I’ve also been learning from the best people I can find about sharing my life on a stage in ways that don’t simply inform but transform audiences.
I’m learning to translate written words into spoken words. I’m learning to depend more and more on the Holy Spirit in this craft. I’m learning to love audiences and join myself to them, not speak above them.
I knew that something had changed in me when a man approached me last night after I spoke on Seated with Christ to a group of 80 professors and graduate students. This kind of group surely would generate insecurity in me about my knowledge and experiences, but it didn’t. Not at all. The man says, “I didn’t listen to you. I listened to God speaking through you, and it was very meaningful to me.”
I stand up there and tell the story of God’s miraculous work in my heart through verbs in scripture, and I let Him speak. I become less; He becomes more.
Amen.