Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: I want you to turn in your Bible to the Old Testament. Those of you that know me know that I love to be in the Old Testament. It's not because I'm an old lady. It's because possibly I was introduced to the Bible and didn't know where to begin reading. I found Christ at college just before a semester break.

Actually, I was in the hospital and I was sick. They sent me back to college and I couldn't go home to Liverpool from Cambridge because it was too far. Everybody else emptied out of the college at semester break and I stayed put because I was still sick in this empty, gorgeous building. It was a 17th-century building, but when you're pretty well alone in that building and you're 17 years of age, it was a little scary, actually, to be there pretty well alone for about a week. But it was the best thing for me because I had just found the Lord. It forced me into realizing that there was no one but God and me around and I'd better begin to climb those steps to the front door, as I put it, and wait till He came out and just talk to Him and begin to hear Him talk to me.

I ended up my training and ended up as a teacher in the back end of Liverpool. In desperation of what to do in the classroom with gangs of leather-jacketed young thugs that wouldn't listen to me teach math or English or anything else, I took off one night, literally, from my beautiful home in the suburbs and didn't tell my parents where I was going. I got on a bus, went down to Lime Street, Liverpool, where I taught, and looked for my kids. I thought, "If they don't like me, they're not going to listen to me. I can't get to know them as people; they can't get to know me in the classroom. So I'm going to be their friend whether they want me to be or not."

I started looking for them, finding them in the Heaven and Hell club and in the drug dives and incredible places in Liverpool. I just began to hang around. I just began to be there. That's called a ministry of presence. You put yourself into the situation physically. It took a while. They were suspicious. They didn't like me there. They asked, "What are you here for? You here to spy on us? You here from the social services? What are you doing?" In the end, they began to look for me.

In the end, I was able to talk to them, and a handful came to Christ. Then the band leader came to the Lord who played in the club that I used to go to. He asked, "You want my platform while I'm having a break? Do you want to say anything to the kids?" I began to stumble through some elementary evangelism. I didn't know what that was. I'd never heard the word. I'd just come to Christ myself.

That's what I began to do. A handful of kids came to Christ, and one guy who was a gang leader called Trevor, who couldn't read or write like many of those 18-year-olds in that situation, came to me one day and said, "Miss, will you teach me to read?" He had his gang around him, and I said, "Trevor, that is the bravest, most wonderful, manly thing I've ever heard. You ask your teacher in front of your peers to teach me to read. You're 18 years of age and I commend you for that. Of course, I would be delighted to do that. But why do you want to read?" He said, "I want to read the Bible. I want to read the Bible."

The very first Bible study I ever took was a group of Liverpool young people that had come to faith. You wouldn't know it by their looks or their behavior at that point, but they had truly come to faith. I didn't know what I was doing. I had never opened a Bible myself but six weeks previously. I didn't know whether an apostle was the wife of an epistle. I hadn't learned that yet.

We learned together. I said, "You and I, kids, we're going to learn this together. I have no idea. Let's discover. Let's just discover." I said to them, "Where do you want to start? Where should we start? I don't know where to start." I thought, "Well, maybe at the beginning. Isn't that the place to start in a book?" So, of course, I made this ghastly mistake of starting in Genesis, getting buried in Leviticus. By the time we got through to probably 1 Kings, they could all read. I began to use those reading lessons to teach, to cartoon actually, the Bible and then put words around it.

Trevor came back to me and I said, "Now we're going to go, I think we need to go to the new bit, to the New Testament, and start there because I think I made a mistake starting here." He said, "Don't, don't do that." I said, "Why not?" He said, "The Old Testament's like a big dark house, Miss, and I'm afraid to go inside. But you're switching the lights on. You're introducing me to the people that live there. Don't take us anywhere else."

Through Trevor's eagerness to learn to meet the people that lived in the big dark house, I began to meet them too and became so fascinated that probably that's why most of my books center around Old Testament characters. We're going to look at a little story, and the reason I told that story was because this story I'm going to share with you was the story that turned that ex-gang leader Trevor into a servant of God.

It was the very simple discovery of the story together in that little group, all of us biblically illiterate, all of us digging for ourselves, looking for the treasure, learning what we could. It was because of meeting this young man I'm going to tell you about in the big dark house. All of us in that little group, actually, were challenged beyond ourselves. I have no idea how the rest of the kids did. I do know that Trevor is still going on with the Lord.

I turn you to 2 Kings Chapter 6. I'm observing that leadership in the West, learning leadership, is a lot about cutting edge. It's a lot about living on the edge. I'm seeing all these conferences with these snazzy titles. Everyone's trying to be on the cutting edge. The cutting edge of publishing, the cutting edge of mission, evangelism, children's ministries, media ministries, compassionate ministries, women's ministries. That's good. Absolutely excellent. But it will not happen; effective ministry will not happen if we, the ones who are seeking to do it and to minister, have lost our cutting edge.

I want to talk about losing the cutting edge, losing the sharpness of your spirituality, which makes all effort in ministry a drudgery, a waste of time basically, and exhausts you. I want to use as an analogy this little story that Trevor and this innocent young schoolteacher in the things of God learned together.

Let's read this little story, Chapter 6 of 2 Kings. The company of the prophets said to Elisha, "Look, the place where we meet with you is too small for us. Let's go to the Jordan where each of us can get a pole. Let's build a place there for us to live." And he said, "Go." And one of them said, "Won't you please come with your servants?" "I will," said Elisha, and he went with them. They went to the Jordan and began to cut down the trees. And as one of them was cutting down a tree, the iron ax head fell into the water. "Oh, my lord," he cried, "it was borrowed." The man of God said, "Where did it fall?" And he showed him the place. And Elisha cut a stick and threw it in there and made the iron float. "Lift it out," he said. Then the man reached out his hand and took it.

Well, this is the story of building, of rebuilding, of building the kingdom of God basically. When I was led to Christ, the girl that led me to the Lord, this nurse in the hospital, gave me a Bible. The only training I had in anything at that point was she said, "Take 20 verses or take a piece of Scripture where there's a division. Just read that piece and ask the text questions: who, where, why, what, when." That's the only clue I had to begin to ask God questions, ask the text, the Word of God questions, and get the answers.

I took that method to this little group of raw people, me included, and we put those questions over every page of Scripture we read as we waded from Genesis all the way through the Bible eventually. It took a few years to get to Revelation. So we're going to do that together. What happens when you lose your spiritual cutting edge while building the kingdom? Why does this happen to the workmen of God, and how do you get it back? That's where I'm going. How is it once we can be sharp and then we're dull?

So, who, where, why, when, what? Let's look at the analogy. Let's be inquisitive. Let's be detectives. Let's hang our heart over the Scripture. Let's put our mind to it. Let's allow ourselves to wonder and to dream around the text, to see who's standing around the corner of the verse, who's in the shadows, what are they dressed like, what's happening.

Who lost it? I asked my little group. So we looked. It was a man from this, and I remember I'm in the King James. There was no help for us with modern translations, and they'd just learned to read. So I'm struggling with the Old King James text, and I can't even remember now what it said, but it wasn't easy. "Well, he's this man who's a prophet. What's a prophet, Miss?" I said, "Well, I think a prophet talked about the future." "What do you mean, Miss?" Well, I said, "We can all talk about the past, but God gives prophets ability to talk about the future." "Hey, that's neat, Miss. Oh, yeah. Can I be a prophet?" They could see dollar signs.

Who were they? Well, it was a man of the company of the prophets. Then we ran around the Scriptures using our little references, little flags pointing us to another place to find out what's a prophet and what's this company of prophets. Of course, eventually with a little bit of help, and I went and found help in other books, we came up with it. They were committed young people, some married, some not. They gathered together under a prophet or a teacher, eager to learn from them, to lead them, etc.

We discovered there was a whole little group of them like in a sort of Bible school, a little seminary in the time of Elijah. You remember that they were being chased by this Jezebel, whoever she was. That took another two days to figure out and look for who's this woman Jezebel. Oh, she married the King of Israel and he was an old compromiser to marry this woman and let her do her thing in Israel. So we figured all that out. We were all chasing round the Bible looking for the answers.

The Bible is its own best interpreter. Of course, we need a library of helps, but you don't really need it if it isn't there. You can use the Bible and it tells you an awful lot of information. So, who lost it? A man of the company of the prophets. In Elijah's day, they were in hiding, haunted, chased, killed by Jezebel. Now she was gone, and Elisha, Elijah's man, his successor, we found out as we looked around the Bible, he began to re-establish these Bible schools, just like they had been before they had been chased into hiding.

Who lost it? A man of the company of the prophets. When did he lose it? Well, we look in the text. Well, they went to the Jordan. They began to cut down trees. And as one of them was cutting down a tree, said one of the kids. That's right, right in the middle of this building event, he lost it. He lost his cutting edge, his ax head. Right? Literally. So right in the middle of an exciting project, when he was full of enthusiasm, with nothing wrong in his life, everything was right. He had committed his life to God. He was going to be trained. He was going to be God's man for his generation. In the middle of all this wild enthusiasm, the ax head falls off the ax.

Who lost it? The man from the company of the prophets. When did he lose it? At the Jordan, right in the middle of this project, this building project. Where did he lose it? They look in the text. Well, the ax head, says one, fell into the water. He lost it in the water. Which water? I asked. We looked. By the Jordan. Oh, that must be the Jordan River. "I've heard about that," said one. "Jordan River is deep and wide." He started singing that.

Why did he lose it? It doesn't say. Right? Doesn't say. So I said, "Well, let's guess. Why do you think he lost it?" One of them said, "Well, maybe he was just untrained. He didn't know how to swing the ax, huh, Miss?" Yeah, that could be it. Maybe he was just too full of enthusiasm. Maybe he just used up all his energy. Yeah, could be. We don't know. But right in the middle when everything was all right, he lost his effectiveness.

So what did he lose? The ax head. The borrowed ax head. A little bit of extra information: the ax head was like a top computer in that company. It was a piece of equipment that was probably the most valuable piece of equipment among 200 prophets or 300 prophets or 50 or however many there were. An ax head, that instrument in that day and age, was incredibly valuable. And it wasn't even his.

What did he lose? A very, very precious thing. Now some of the older translations say this: he came to Elisha and he said, "I've searched for it in vain. I've nothing wherewith to repay it." So he tried. Whether he got in the water, maybe he couldn't swim. The River Jordan by Jericho, which people believe this was near Jericho, is very deep and in that time very wide and incredibly deep for a river. So this thing flew off into an unreachable place. But he tried. He tried to find it and he couldn't.

Now let's begin to look at the analogy, the lost ax head. First of all, he had it. He had it. Wanted to play his part. They were a poor community; they couldn't afford people to come and help them build their new Bible school and the buildings there. Each man was assigned a piece. Did you notice that? Each man said, "That's your tree. You cut that pole down and bring it and we're going to make like a log house." That's what they made, out of a fashion.

So each man wasn't given the whole forest. Each man was given a tree. This was his little patch, maybe two or three trees, whatever, we don't know. They were assigned. The work was divided up and they were assigned. Just as he was really feeling he was pulling his weight, he began to find that he was really only hurting the trees. You lose your effectiveness, you lose your cutting edge spiritually, and you'll only hurt the trees. You'll hurt people.

It's an incredible thing, and I have experienced this in my own life and ministry. Nothing's really happening and it was a month ago, it was a year ago, it was yesterday. Suddenly I've lost something. I've lost it. I'm just not cutting it. I'm too dull to deliver it. He had it, he lost it, he searched for it, he confessed it, he found it, and he used it again.

So let me apply this. Maybe you're in the company of the redeemed working to build the kingdom. At the moment, listening to me, you say, "I got it. Things are just great. I feel I'm in touch with God. I feel I'm hearing His voice. My little group is growing, my Bible study, my young moms, my mops, whatever it is that I'm in charge of, my committee, my practical work, my spiritual work, whatever it is. Yeah, it seems to be okay. I feel I'm on the cutting edge, and God is using my life." Well, wait a bit. Keep these notes because you're going to come back to them. If you're going to have a long ministry, let me tell you something: keep these notes. Because there will be many times in your life you will have this experience.

Maybe you're here and you say, "I lost it. I don't know what's wrong. My prayer life isn't going anywhere. I haven't seen any prayers answered. I've prayed and I've worked and I've made absolutely no inroads in this or that and I'm muddled and confused. I wasn't last year. Everything was going wonderfully well." So I don't know where you are in the outline, but maybe by the end of my talk you'll find out. You say, "I've got it. Life's good." But maybe you've lost it, and you're only hurting the trees. You're absolutely getting nowhere. You're exhausting yourself. You're doing the same things, swinging at the trees, swinging at the situation, and nothing's coming down. Absolutely nothing's coming down.

Now I'm really talking about losing the sharpness of life in the spirit. You cannot lose the spirit, but you can grieve the spirit and lose your cutting edge. You can resist the spirit and hurt the trees. You can get out of step with the spirit. You can't lose the spirit, and that's where all analogies fall down. You cannot lose the ax head, but you can lose the effectiveness of your Christian life.

I remember one of the young people years ago asking me in my youth group, "Can you ever fall out of God, Miss?" I said, "As far as I understand the Bible, no." He said, "Then what happens when some of our friends come to Jesus and then they begin to live as if they never had? Have they lost God? Has He walked out of their life as surely as He walked in it?" I remember holding my hand out and putting a penny in it in those days, an English penny, UK penny, and making it stand up in my hand. I said, "The Bible says that no man shall pluck us out of our Father's hand." Then I pushed the penny and it fell over. I said, "You can fall over, but you can't fall out. You can't fall out. But you can fall over. You can lose it in some sense in your spiritual walk."

Hear me carefully. I am not saying you can lose the spirit. I know some people believe you can. I happen not to believe that. But you can grieve Him, resist Him, quench Him, be out of step with Him, etc. I wonder if that's what's been happening in your life. I have lost the ax head many, many times. I can lose it twice in a week, three times in a week. What I have learned or am still learning to do is to be cognizant of that when it happens, to be aware of it.

Well, I'm sure he was aware of it. It wasn't too hard. He'd lost the ax head and two more bashes at the tree, he'd obviously lost something. I've come to believe that it is as obvious to us as it was to this young man. We just perhaps don't want to think about it or do anything about it, and so we just carry on, carrying on.

Years ago when I was in mission and I was in a rather difficult situation with my husband on the road all the time and being responsible for a nursery school of a couple hundred kids, a youth work, street work, three kids under six, just very, very busy. Then all the work with the mission, which was mostly physical work, I began to get resentful of what was happening, of my position. I began to resent the mission, the leadership of the mission. I began to resent the church. I began to resent—I never resented God funnily enough, but I did resent everybody up to Him, everybody.

The problem was I had learned to carry on, to look the part of this little missionary and doing this youth work. I did carry on. Inside I knew I'd lost the edge because I was resisting the will of God that I knew very well was the will of God for me in that period of my life. I began to resent it, I began to get angry and bitter, etc. I thought, "Well, nobody knows because I know now how to be a missionary. I know how to go and run the youth group. I know I'll turn up tomorrow for school and look after the nursery school and I'll do the street work and I'll take the students out and I'll give them their little talk of how to reach the unreached and I can do all that." I did, and I did it with that nice big evangelical smile on my face.

The kids at this point began to ask me questions. My children. "Where's Daddy going?" "Well, he's going to America, Africa, whatever." I'd put that big smile on my face and say, "Isn't it wonderful that God wants to use Daddy?" I remember Peter saying, "No, it isn't wonderful, Mommy. Why can't He use someone else's daddy? Why does our daddy have to be the one that leaves all the time?" I gave the correct answer. I tucked him up in bed and we prayed and I went to my bedroom, put my head on the pillow under the pillow, and sobbed myself to sleep.

But I got up the next day and I carried on. I continued hitting the trees with a handle. One day Major Thomas, Ian Thomas, the head of our mission, was preaching to the Sunday service we had in the castle, which was the center. I noticed something now that I did then. Now I'm a pastor's wife. I removed myself from the front of the room and began to sit at the back of the room. I didn't want to be too near the preacher. I didn't want to be under his nose. Up to then, I'd always wanted to sit at the front, believing all the blessings were in the front seats and I could concentrate more and I wasn't distracted, there was no problem with that. I'd rush to get that place. But suddenly I found myself slipping in the back. Of course, I had to go. Of course. I was a missionary. I was a leader. I was in charge of this, that, and the other.

I would come to Capernwray into the beautiful hall in that castle and I would tuck myself at the back. I remember one terrible day and wonderful day when Major Thomas was preaching, and he suddenly applied—I hadn't really been listening too hard. I didn't dare listen too hard to anything, but I was keeping my mind busy with other things. Suddenly he caught my attention. He got me and he said, "Some of you here have become totally ineffective and everybody knows it." He got me, and I sat up and I said, "No, they don't. Nobody knows it. Nobody knows what's gone on in my heart, that I have lost my cutting edge. Nobody knows it. I know how to do the thing. I know how to act it."

But he got my attention. He said, "I'll tell you why everybody knows. Nobody is receiving anything from you of importance." I sat there and I said, "Oh, God." I began to think when was the last time I'd led one of those street kids to Christ? When was the last time my heart would leap with joy as I set off at 11 o'clock at night for a night on the streets looking for the one prodigal God had in mind for me to bring home to Him? When was the last time I felt any joy at all in any of it? I couldn't remember. I realized for a long time nobody had received. I had lost my cutting edge.

I guess resisting the spirit's direction in leadership—the job hasn't turned out as you thought. You accepted this responsibility and around the corner of that decision, "Oh, this wasn't what I expected. This isn't what I want to do. This isn't this, this isn't that." Disappointment sets in. Like a kid that won't sit in church, you're sitting down on the outside, but you're standing up on the inside. Horrible feeling, that. Actually, you look great, the head of this and the other Bible study and you're the mentor for this and you collect clothes for the old people and all of this. You look the part.

I believe walking in the spirit, in the fullness of the spirit, which is what I'm talking about, which is the only effective way to go in ministry—I believe it's a spiritual art. All art must be learned and practiced. I have learned another lesson about losing your spiritual edge. If you have the privilege of exercising the gift God has given you, and you always have that stab of joy when you're doing that, "Yes, this is what I'm made for," and you have a church that has found a place for you to do that, and you do it and you learn to do it and you do it well—I want to ask you a question. Are you relying on the flesh or the spirit?

Well, you say, "Jill, how will I know?" I think it's extremely hard to know. I have done it myself. I've heard other people say things like, "Well, pray for me. I'm really relying on God." Then they get up and they do what they've done a hundred thousand times, do it incredibly well. I understand that dilemma. How do you know you're relying on the spirit when you have learned to do it well?

I have built into my life and ministry a very simple answer to that. I deliberately take on something I know I am not gifted for every year. I learn a skill like typing. I couldn't type till eight years ago. I've written all those books longhand. I can hear my daughter's voice right now: "Don't be proud of it, Mother. Learn." Yes. Shh. I can manage. I'm too old to learn not only the skill of a computer but the skill of, you know. So I'll do it the old-fashioned way.

Well, there came a point when I messed up a contract big time and overdid and it got lost and I was faxing to my poor secretary who has the gift of tongues in writing and she was trying to decipher my scribble and put it on disk and hit me in Tajikistan if there was a fax machine. I mean, it was just ridiculous. I got in a total muddle and out-dated my contract. I went over the date to finish. I decided at that point that I would learn to type.

I remember going around to our son's house and announcing to our grandchildren, "Nana is going to learn to type." There was total silence. The children turned around and gazed at me. "You don't type, Nana?" "No, I don't type." "You don't know how to type, Nana? You don't computer?" "No, no, no. I've got to learn to type first." A 4-year-old said, "I'll help you." Took me by the hand, "Stand there." I stood here. He sat down. He booted up. He picked up the mouse. He turned around. "Nana, this is the mouse." Humility. My 7-year-old granddaughter came in, handed me a piece of paper, said, "This is my typing lessons, Nana. I've finished with it. You can have it." She said, "Nana, look at me. These are your pointies, these are your pinkies. You put them on here." They taught me to type. Wonderful.

It was an incredibly difficult challenge for me. It was something I am not gifted for in no way. I am right-brain or left-brain, whichever the part of your brain is that doesn't know anything about money or typing. I'm the other part. This part's dead. But it was so good for me because while I was doing those things that I have honed and used and I'm not quite sure if I'm relying on the spirit anymore because I've learned how to do them, I had a skill I was learning that kept me dependent. If you're not on risk's edge somewhere, you won't learn dependence. You see, a very practical idea I would commend it to you.

I was struck by this as a speaker when I heard a very famous man say, who's a—was, he's gone to heaven now—but he was a world-renowned teacher of preachers: "It is possible—and this is even hard to read, he's a real wordsmith—it is possible to be homiletically brilliant, verbally fluent, theologically profound, biblically accurate, and orthodox, and spiritually useless." That frightens me, he said. I hope it frightens you. It's very easy for us to be so concerned about homiletical ability and fluency, theological profundity, and biblical accuracy, but for God to say, "Preach on, great preacher, without Me." That frightens me. I hope it frightens you.

He was talking about this very same thing. So, yes, yes, yes. Find your gift, use your gift, train your gift, hone your gift. That you must do. But somewhere in your life, put yourself at risk's edge so you have to depend on God. I assure you it took the fullness of the spirit to help me to type and to learn the computer as much as it takes the fullness of the spirit for me to do the thing I love to do most, which is to teach and to preach.

So thank you, Eric Alexander, for that word. There's danger in only doing what you're gifted to do because there comes a point where you become good at it. That must be. But don't say things that have a ring of insincerity about them when you say, "I have to really depend on God," because it's very hard to know. You have to put yourself somewhere in the presence of God where you're reaching, where you're stretching, where you're pushing out the sides of your soul, where you're going somewhere you never dreamed you could go in order that you may be driven to depend on God's help and God's spirit to do what you could never do.

That's sort of a grand adventure. Really is. Like getting out of the boat. I see the church in the West sitting in the boat. I see the church in the East getting out of the boat like Peter did, and I see Jesus—His eyes are a flame. "Yes, Peter. Come on." Of course, when Peter sank, Jesus' disappointment: "Where's your faith? What happened, Peter?" I wonder what He said to those who never got out of the boat. When you get out of the boat, you have to depend. That's what Peter found.

Be on risk's edge somewhere. This fullness, this sharpness, this fullness of the spirit is the sharpness of the spirit. It means that God takes you beyond yourself. It means that God takes your words and rides on them into someone's mind and heart on an airplane or in a supermarket or in your little group that you're teaching. It means where you become helpless because only the spirit of God can bring life and regenerate somebody, He takes over and you see that happen.

Now it doesn't mean you're always successful. What happens when you do not see, even when you are sharp and in touch with the spirit, when you don't see the trees fall? But basically speaking, your success is known between you and God. You know it. Eric Liddell: God gave him athletic ability. He was doing what God helped him to do. "God made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure." Yeah. And when you're doing what God gifted you to do, you feel His pleasure. Feeling that pleasure, however, many of us running in that race with some athletic ability never win the Olympics. Many of us even fail. Many of us even fail, go flat out and exhaust ourselves and end up on the track. Does that mean we failed? No, not necessarily.

We can fail humanly in the power of the spirit because other elements are coming in here. So I'm not talking about every time you witness, you'll see people saved. I'm not talking about anything like that. I'm talking about knowing internally that whether the tree falls or not, you're doing what pleases God because He said, "Cut down the tree." Whether other people look and say, "What a failure. Look, his tree still stands. Everybody else has cut down their tree, and that guy lost his ax head. His tree still stands. He's a failure." No, it's not a failure because it might be for other reasons the tree doesn't fall. But he will know he's a success if he is doing what God told him. Put your ax to that tree. If it doesn't fall, that's My business, not yours. You do what I say. That's when you're sharp. That's what you get brownie points for in heaven: doing the will of God whatever the results, whatever the results.

In the fullness of the spirit, we are able to fail actually and survive. In the fullness of the spirit, most times eternal work will be done. We might not see it; somebody else might reap the benefits down the road. There's all sorts of things we could develop, but I need to move on. I do want to just say something here: that practical gifts are spiritual gifts. I want to say that with a very loud voice because we're involved in helping women to find their place through women's ministries and in women's ministries and in the church.

There is something arisen that I don't know where it came from: that there are spiritual gifts and there are practical gifts. And the spiritual gifts, which are speaking, teaching, singing, upfront stuff, are spiritual word stuff. The practical gift, the helps and the administration and the tidying up the pews and taking people to hospital, are the practical gift and they're the lesser gifts. I would just refer you to Exodus 35 when you have time, not now. Verse 34 of that chapter says God has filled him with His spirit. This man is filled with the spirit of God. And He has gifted this man with skill, ability, and knowledge in all kinds of crafts. Artistic design. Working gold, silver, bronze. Cutting and setting stones. Working in wood. Engaging in all kinds of artistic craftsmanship. And He's given him, both him and Oholiab, the ability to teach others these crafts. Right?

God said he can't do My work, this work, unless he's filled with the spirit. I have filled him with the spirit to do practical, spiritual, gifting things. I remember teaching on spiritual gifts years ago in our women's ministry and there was a young woman sitting on the bench and she got more and more depressed the more I went on. I thought, "What am I saying to upset this poor young mom?" Her body language—she was crunching down into this fetal position on the pew. I thought, "Oh, good heavens." The more I spoke, the more desperate this poor young mom became.

Afterward, I got down. She tried to sneak out, and I caught her and sat her down. I said, "You have to tell me: what did I say that discouraged you so much?" She said, "Well, you talked about spiritual gifts, and I don't have any of those gifts. I'm not gifted." I said, "Every Christian is gifted. That's what the Bible says." "Yeah, but you see, I don't have any gifts. I can't sing in the choir and I can't do this." I said, "What can you do?" She said, "Nothing, nothing. I don't have any gifts."

I said, "What did you get an A for? What did you get a B for? What did you get a C+ for in school?" You know, we had to go down the line a bit. I said, "What was your best mark?" desperately. She put her head down, went back into her fetal position, and said, "Craft." I said, "What?" "Craft." I said, "Look at me. Tell me. Craft? Craft? Craft? That's all I can do, craft."

I said, "I'm so jealous. Jesus did craft, you know. Worked with wood. He chose to be a craftsman. 33 years he did that. I don't do craft. I just do words. It's easy. You do craft?" I watched this young woman grow, come out of her fetal position and sit properly on the pew, taller. I said, "That's a spiritual gift." I took her to this passage and we walked through it. Fabulous passage.

That young woman took off in the early part of our ministry because her craft was quilt making. She began to invite non-believing neighbors into her home around her quilting board. She began to invite her Christian friends to come and learn as well and put them among her non-Christian neighbors and they came to Christ. Came to Christ. All gifts are spiritual, but even that lady can lose her cutting edge because it's your walk with the Lord that turns this whole thing to His account and makes the difference.

So, what do we do? You have it or have you lost it? Well, I'm going to ask you the question Elisha asked: "Where'd you lose it?" If you're going to get your effectiveness back, if you're going to be a woman the devil fears, you're going to have to see where you lost it and tell somebody. Oh, I pray you have an Elisha in your life. I pray you can be an Elisha for other people who comes alongside and says, "Where'd you lose it? I'll help you. Come on, let's think about this. Let's pray about this. Tell me about it. Where'd you lose it?" He showed him the place. You acknowledge it and you take the person.

It was easy for me once I realized where I lost it: resentment to the mission. I had to go back and I had to say to my senior missionary one terrible, terrible day when I was humbled in every way, "I lost it, and that's where. When I became angry at you and angry at God eventually and angry at my husband and angry at the world. That's where I lost it." Well, you have to go back to where you lost it. Then what you do? God will bring it back within reach. God will bring it back within reach.

You apply the wood. He took a stick and he threw it in that place. You apply, if you wish the picture, the blood of Christ to that resentment, that sin, that anger. The blood of Christ goes on cleansing you from all sin. Can God restore us? Can God renew us? Can God give us back our effectiveness for Him? Yeah. But you have to apply the wood. You have to show your heavenly Elisha or let an earthly Elisha help you and ask you where did you lose it. Then you have to put out your hand and lift it out.

The man reached out his hand and he took it. He appropriated that sharpness, that powerfulness, usefulness, impact back into his life and God restored his cutting edge. So maybe you've lost it. Where'd you lose it? Would you apply the wood? Let God, by the life given—His blood, life is in the blood—by His life given, address your dullness, your coldness, dryness, burnt-outness, whatever. I don't know where you lost it. Let Him address it. Would you admit it? Would you submit your life back to Him? And then would you continue the work, appropriate the power, and build the kingdom of God to His glory?

Pray with me, will you? Now, Lord, we have been talking using an analogy from a story, a real-life story in Your book, Your golden book. Takes me back to Trevor and Kenny and Sam and all those kids sitting around me, all of us learning together Your incredible Word. I think about that young man. I think about the principles we learned together that he has been enabled to continue and apply to his life, his effective life for You.

And publicly I would like to say, Lord, I am so sorry for all the times I have pretended that I haven't lost my edge when all the time everybody knows, for no one is receiving anything from me. Forgive me. And Lord, I really do know where I lose it or where I've lost it. I ask You on behalf of my sisters in this quiet moment that they would apply the blood. Hear their confessions, dear Lord. This is where I lost it, Lord Jesus, forgive me. Go there. Go on, go there. Go to the place you lost it in your mind. Now apply the blood. Receive His forgiveness. Put out your hand. Appropriate His power. Oh, Lord Jesus, we hear the seraphs sing, and we add our voices. We praise You. Amen.