I asked writer friend, teacher, theologian, and soon to be author, Halee Scott, to share from the perspective of women being warriors for God. First, she informed me of a woman who inspires her and someone we should all know.
Halee: One female leader that amazes me is Henrietta Mears. She wasn’t afraid to dream big dreams. She once said, “When I consider my ministry, I think of the world. Anything less than that would not be worthy of Christ, nor of his will for my life.” She was the “spiritual grandmother” to a few of those who founded and led the most prominent ministries the 20th century, including Campus Crusade for Christ, the Billy Graham Evangelical Association, Youth for Christ, the Navigators, and Young Life.
Then Halee was gracious enough to share her convictions and what God is teaching her about His army of women.
God’s Invisible Army
The most ancient tool of warfare isn’t the sword or the scythe—it’s smoke. For millennia, warring groups have exploited smoke to obscure movement in areas that were open to enemy fire. Nobody knows exactly when smoke became a strategic military tactic. The Greek historian Thuycides records that it concealed some of the battles in the Peloponnesian War in the 5th century, but the first written record of the use of a “smokescreen” dates to around 1445 B.C. during the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt.
Once the Israelites fled Egypt, the Egyptian Pharaoh regretted his decision to free them (Ex. 14:5). He readied his army of six hundred chariots and pursued the Israelites, eventually trapping them between the mountains and the Red Sea. At that perilous moment, the pillar of cloud by which the Lord was leading the Israelites through the desert moved behind them, settling between the two encampments, effectively creating a “smokescreen” by cloaking the Israelites from the vision of the Egyptian army (Ex. 14:19).
Inadvertently, the theological debate over the nature of Christianity serves as a smokescreen that eclipses the way that God is using influential Christian women around the world. Christian women are God’s invisible army. While the theological debate about women leaders is important, but it needs to take place in the context of a larger, celebratory conversation about how God is working through women. By failing to celebrate how God is working through women, the stories of these women are lost, and our lack of stories truncates vision of what God can do through a single life—your life, my life, and the lives of our daughters.
God is working through women. I want my daughters to know that. I want them to know that their lives count before God. I want them to know that they are full of tremendous potential to be a force for good to a world swamped in incomprehensible evil. Most of all, I want them to know that they are not invisible to God. I want you to know that, too. You matter. Even in those moments you feel most useless, most irrelevant, most unwanted, most unqualified or disqualified, you are not invisible to God. God, the Creator of a universe that contains a staggering 100 billion galaxies—sees you, and He’s gifted you for a specific purpose. “But each has his own gift from God,” the apostle Paul writes, “one of one kind and one of another … only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him” (1 Cor. 7:7, 17).
To grow as leaders, we need to have a firm grasp of the challenges we will encounter. Women today live in a time of unparalleled freedom and opportunities. Though women are still underrepresented in top leadership positions in every sector of American life—from politics to business to the church—the truth is that we have more opportunities to have a meaningful impact on our world and our society today than at any other time in human history. We just have to be ready and equipped for the challenges ahead. (Encouraged yet? Excerpted from Dare Mighty Things: Mapping the Challenges for Christian Women Leaders. Anticipated arrival Spring 2014!)
Are you a woman in the Lord’s military? How are you using your gifts for the glory of the Lord?
Halee Gray Scott is an writer, scholar, and researcher. She is author of the upcoming book, Dare Mighty Things: Mapping the Challenges for Christian Women Leaders. Her research and teaching focuses on theology, spiritual formation and leadership. Her articles have appeared in Christianity Today, Real Clear Religion, Her.Meneutics, Books and Culture, Kyria, Gifted For Leadership and Outcomes. She blogs at www.hgscott.com.
© Halee Gray Scott
A SISTA'S JOURNEY 