“This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.”

1 Corinthians 4:1 (ESV)

When I became a Christian, after a few decades of spiritual confusion and Truth seeking, I was perhaps overly-eager to share the Truth I was learning with those I love most. My youngest son, Tanner, has always been deeply philosophical and loves to engage in hours-long conversations; these moments are among my most treasured as his mom, so naturally I approached him first. But in my well-intentioned, passionate, and hasty heart, I made the same mistake many new believers do: I spoke without waiting for spiritual maturity and wisdom. I spoke with great passion but not-so-great understanding.

As I have grown and matured in my faith and learned that the path to understanding God is an eternal one, I cringe at those initial failures to properly convey God’s Truth to my son, who is currently a non-believer. How much damage did I do, I fear, in my desire to impart the peace and love and freedom found only in Jesus? There was a reason Jesus remained with the Apostles for three years before commissioning them (Matt. 28:16-20) and that Paul was whisked away to the Arabian desert for three years to receive revelation from God before returning to the world to teach and evangelize (Gal. 1:15-24).

“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.”

1 Corinthians 13:11 (ESV)

It is an enormous honor and privilege to become a servant of Yeshua, and yet it is also a weighty responsibility to carry His message well. It is the Spirit of God who speaks wisdom into us–not our own intellect–but it is also necessary for us to mature in our own experience of God in order to hear His Spirit and share it with others.

Today I am grateful for mercy that is new every morning and humbled by the reminder to always seek and wait for the Spirit of God to operate through me rather than speak and act of my own accord, lest I in my arrogance and ignorance fail to be a proper servant and steward.