What do I Have?

What do I have to bring to the table? My hands are empty. My heart feels empty, too. My mind--it’s far from empty, but is there anything hiding within which is worthwhile?

A snowscape beckons my yearning gaze out the window. The wind, the pure frozen tundra appears bleak, dull, lifeless, but it has something to offer--

From the edges of the window appear a group of children, racing along the landscape, tossing snowballs at one another, pulling a sled with an even smaller child atop. Their giggling glides across the icy top of the otherwise untouched snow, giving my heart a jumpstart, the pure giddiness their laughter contains plucking on deadened strings.

Even stark winter has something to bring to the table.

What do I have?

I have longing--a deep, gut-wrenching desire to be used for glory, for good, for something, somebody, much higher in purpose and stature and everything than me.

It started as a small fire, lit as if by a single, last-ditch match that had been submerged in water and encased in ice. But the fire caught, slightly, ever so tiny, in the belly of my soul. It burned, steadily, almost blowing out, but it burned on despite the recurring waves of doubt and the lies of the enemy. It burned on, steadily.

God, use me. I cried, in the depths of my being, keeled over on the floor of my bedroom, heart bent in reverence and desire. God, use me despite myself and my shortcomings and my sinfulness. God, use me.

I have nothing but you. Use me, God, use me. Empty me of myself--of my jealousies and my comparisons and my pride. Empty me of anxieties and anger and lust. Empty me, O God, empty me.

Fill me with you. Fill me with your Divine Presence and Redeemed Creativity. Let me heed your voice and your leading. Let me seek your will rather than my own, flawed, human one.

Jesus, use me.

Fill me with your love.

Jesus, use me.

What do I have to bring to the table?

Nothing, on my own.

But, the match-fire has blazed on, igniting my soul to the One who calls me higher and deeper than I can imagine.

I have nothing but Him.

In Him, I am New.

This, He, is my fire.


“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:17-21)


“Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold.” (2 Corinthians 3:12)