Listening for the Spirit at Work
Chelsey Weber
Good morning, and welcome to Church of the Pilgrims. My name is Chelsy Weber, and I’ve been in and around Pilgrims for awhile now. In preparing for this morning, Ashley shared with me some ideas on how to think about my story. One of the ideas was to think about how the Holy Spirit provides us with a new lens for looking at the world. Another was to consider how the Spirit pushes us to resist what is secure and familiar, the status quo. My story certainly centers around the Spirit’s providing a new lens for looking at the world. However, I’ve never really needed help with resisting the status quo. Sometimes, those of us who tend never to be satisfied with life as it is need help to realize that God still has a purpose for us within the our current surroundings.
I can’t remember a single time in my life when I was satisfied with the so-called status quo. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been planning, and thinking, and taking various steps toward, the next incredible thing I was going to do. I went to law school with lofty ideals of becoming a public interest lawyer and helping the poor and downtrodden. I used to also constantly think about all the places in the world I would move to do volunteer and service work. Of course, as time went on, and I got older, as happens to many of us, the practical side of me kicked in, and I realized that public interest jobs are actually much harder to get than jobs at big corporate law firms, not to mention the law school debt minimum payments are a lot higher than I thought they would be. So, I took a big corporate law job. And satisfying its demands literally requires almost all of my waking hours. My fabulous plans to volunteer, and to do pro bono work, and to be constantly engaged in the service of others were put on hold.
As a result, for most of this year, I felt extremely discouraged. I just didn’t feel like I was serving any purpose for anyone other than myself, and maybe not even myself. I prayed about it all the time. I prayed constantly to be of use to God in some way. I prayed for more time – more time to think, more time to pray, more time to do the things that matter in life like helping others. I prayed that God would show me what was next, because I felt like I was of no use in His plan whatsoever. The only voice I heard in response seemed to constantly tell me to just stay put. I wasn’t qualified for any other jobs yet, since I was no longer entry level, but not yet experienced. I owed my firm money for my bar expenses that I had to pay back if I didn’t stay for a certain period of time. And my husband loves his job and is doing well here, so we weren’t about to move or change anything drastic on that front.
In the midst of this discouragement, I walked into church several weeks ago and heard a passage from Psalm 46:10. “Be still and know that I am God.” It’s a very familiar line, and it certainly was not the first time I heard it, but somehow it resonated more with me that day than it previously had. I finally realized what the Holy Spirit had been working for months to show me. Be still, have faith, and wake up every day and keep trying. Be still, and notice God in the little everyday things. Be still and wait with patience and faith that opportunities for God’s service will come. Although the Spirit had been working in me for months to make that revelation clear, it suddenly became visible. We don’t always feel like we’re making some huge difference in the world. If we have any sense of conscience, we never feel like we’re doing enough to serve God and the world around us. But one of the biggest things God has to teach us is to have patience and to appreciate His everyday miracles. It’s true, I’m not yet working with indigent clients or moving to a developing country to work with refugees or disaster victims, although I have high hopes for the future. And I can’t really do those things quite yet. But God still has a use for me here and now, and more opportunities to serve will come. Be still and know that I am God. Keep praying, keep listening, and God will have a use for me. Once I chose to accept and listen to this inner voice that the Holy Spirit had provided, I found myself noticing God’s work more, appreciating creation, and people, and acts of love, more, and better accepting that although life holds a great deal of uncertainty, opportunities to serve God arise every day – some big, some small, but the small ones are worth it too, and God needs them just as much.
I suppose this story of the Holy Spirit’s work is a bit more subtle than some, but to me, it wasn’t subtle at all. It was a whole new lens for looking at the world.
