#TestimonyTuesday: You’re greater than you think you are
Today’s testimony is really a testimony of just how good God is, and how faithful He truly is.
It speaks of God’s handiwork over the course of nearly 3 decades!
“You’re greater than you think you are”
It was the summer of 1996 and I was getting ready to graduate from the
PAIS Project (now the PAIS movement). I’d spent 12 months working out of a Pentecostal church in Droylsden, Manchester (UK) who provided me with a home to live in for the year with a church family. I, in turn, provided help with the youth work for that church. Monday to Friday was the PAIS Project and we mostly provided assemblies in Primary and Secondary Schools around East Manchester. Sometimes we’d also give lessons to schools too, and we also supported many lunch time clubs (Christian Unions).
If I’m honest I didn’t think I was very good, but it was a free year out after I’d finished school. I finished the year knowing a couple of things – I missed leading worship in churches, which I felt I understood much better, and I was rather excited about my upcoming marriage. But, with the youth work I always felt somewhat out of my depth. I worked hard. I tried my best in all I did, and met some great people. But I never felt like I really excelled in what I was doing.
As graduation day approached, and I reflected upon the year I’d spent on PAIS, we had a day of prayer and fasting. A man came to speak to us and I was told he regularly gave prophecies out to all those present – he did not disappoint. I only heard a few of the prophecies as they were spoken to those nearest to me, and many made no sense to me at all – well they weren’t for me – but you could tell they meant something particularly relevant for each person being spoken to.
When he finally came up to me he looked at me and spoke the words “You’re greater than you think you are”. I must have had an especially curious expression because he looked puzzled and spoke the words again. I guess my face wasn’t showing a great deal of confidence in what was being spoken over me, so he looked at my eyes once more and delivered those words.
Little did he know how much they would impact my life in the years since.
The photo below is of me on the stage at the home church for the PAIS Project in the UK and I recently was able to attend for the 30th Anniversary Celebrations.
As I look back over the years since I graduated I am a very different person to who I was. I recognise, now more than ever, that my willing heart was of far greater value than any skills I had back then. Being rather brutally honest, my skills were not exactly ground breaking!
But most important was the work God started to do within me. Yes, I know God worked through me. I know that without hesitation! But the work He started within me is of far greater value.
That rather nervous lad on the left photo would go on to lead a Christingle to nearly 800 people. I went on to celebrate 26 years of marriage – with 3 godly sons who all gave their lives to Jesus when they turned 4 years old. I would be asked to launch a Radio Show for an International Christian Radio Station, and I’ve seen a 5 year old give her life to Jesus through a Light Party I brought to life
I’m really amazed at what I have been asked to do over the years in my service of God. But I count all of that as nothing to something of far greater value – the fact that, despite all my many failings and mistakes, God is still desiring to use me to serve Him.
“You’re greater than you think you are” is something that always reminds me, not of what I can accomplish, but of how far Jesus has dragged me through some of the hardest pains known to man!
“You’re greater than you think are”
Andy B