BY STEPHANIE MORENO

I love to worship the Lord with music. Before I fall asleep, I ask my Father to wake me up with a song to play while I worship Him. As my eyes are taking their first groggy blinks, He faithfully gives me a few words or a melody of a song. I rush downstairs, pop my AirPods in, blast the song and worship the Lord. I wake up a few hours before anyone else in the house is stirring, so I don’t actually sing out loud. But every part of my being is submitted to the Lord. It’s just me and God and I am free to do anything – completely abandoned to Him – I dance, jump, skip, spin, weep, cry out on my knees or wrecked on my face. Without any sound, the cry of my heart is the loudest as I pour out everything to Him. It’s the absolute best part of my day. 

One morning, I was crying out to God to show me what needs to be removed from me in order to serve Him better. He responded with “I’m actually telling you to settle into you. Settle into the way I created you. Settle into your gifts. Settle into your desire and hunger for Me. Settle into these things because I created you unique and set apart. You are to do the things I have assigned to you, because of the way I created you. I created you with endless possibilities as long as you remain the clay in My hands.” 

The Lord instructed me to ask Him each morning: 

1. Reveal one way You made me? 

2. How do I walk in that gift today? 

I’ve been Stephanie my whole life and I have never thought the way I am is super special or for a unique purpose. I believed that the parts of my character, my desires and my being were just me. He is revealing that these parts that are normal to me, are the ways in which He created me and each one is a gift. He knit me together with each quality for His purpose in mind. He has invited me into a new facet of our relationship – the Creator and the creation. As He uncovers the ways in which He has created me, He’s also teaching me how to walk in that gift. As my eyes are opened to each gift, I see Him working through them. I can’t help but surrender them to Him because it’s only by His grace. 

The first day I asked Him this question, His answered “nurturing”. To nurture means to care for and encourage the growth or development of. He instructed me to use this gift by praying for those I lead, to pause and wait for Him to lead while parenting and to speak this identity often and out loud – “I am nurturing”. Later that day, I was out for a walk. As I walked, I was praying for the people I lead –  women from my Bible study group, the women I am discipling, my kids. As I was praying, I stepped over this empty ice cream cup on the ground. The Lord stopped me and said “turn around and pick it up.” So I did. Then, He started opening my eyes to all kinds of trash along this trail and He kept telling me to pick it up. He said “you are created to nurture the land, keep the trash out.” Obviously, I was keeping the trash out in the natural realm, but I felt the spiritual realm responsibility attached to His words. By the end of the walk, I was paying more attention to the trash than to my walk. 

The next day, my whole family went for a walk – my kids rode their scooters and my husband and I  walked. We made it a few houses down and I saw a wrapper on someone’s grass. Thinking that was yesterday’s assignment, I walked right past it until I heard Him say “turn around and pick it up.” As we continued to walk, He continued to tell me “pick it up” as we passed trash. Almost immediately, my husband joined me in picking up trash. Further along in the walk, when we caught up to our kids on their scooters, my eight year old son looks at our hands full of litter and asked, “what are you guys doing?” My husband replied jokingly “God told Momma to pick up trash and Momma told Daddy to pick up trash.” My son responded with “I will help you guys.” Instead of racing ahead on his scooter, he stayed behind with us, scanned the ground and helped us remove the trash from the land in which God has placed us to live. 

A few days later, He told me that He made me a writer and that I am to hear what He says and put it onto paper. I had struggled with setting aside time to write with Him. I kept feeling like reading my Bible, praying or worshiping needed to come before sitting down to write. He said “when you write, it is worship”. The Lord showed me that when I walk in the way He designed me, it is worship to Him. We all know that worship is not just the time we spend singing to the Lord, but it’s how we live our lives. As I settle into this relationship of Creator and creation, He’s showing me that each unique way He knit me together, is a possibility to be poured out as worship to Him. And He loves this worship – when His creation is walking exactly how He designed. 

I think we naturally settle into the dominating parts of our giftings and it becomes our career or ministry and sometimes even invades our identity. We can begin to operate within our own strength and in our own vision of these gifts. I hear the Lord saying “stay the clay in My hands. I am your Creator and you are My creation. Allow Me to reveal how I designed you. Settle in to each unique way I created you and pour it back out to Me – this is true worship.