Episode 88 - Flawed but Faithful: Inspiration from Women in the Bible.

Today we welcome another special guest to the show: Sharon Wilharm! Sharon is a Christian speaker, a bible storyteller, an award-winning filmmaker, besides being the host of the All God's Women podcast. The unique and fascinating thing about Sharon is that she has enjoyed a lifelong fascination with the women in the Bible, and she loves applying the Bible stories to our situations today.  

Her journey expanded in 2020, when her daughter was getting married and she started thinking that she would need something to keep her busy after her daughter left the nest. 

She decided to start a podcast, the All God's Women podcast. That’s when she started digging deeper and asking herself: “Why did God put this woman in this Bible? Why did he include her name in His story? How did God use this?”

And that changed her life, because then she began becoming a Bible scholar instead of just a Bible reader.  

She discovered that the Bible is not made of superheroes, but just very ordinary people who had weaknesses and God still used them. 

All these people from the Bible  made an impact, but when we really dig a little deeper, we find that they were human,  sinners, they were scared, they were fearful, and yet they acted in faith. They trusted God. They were obedient to small things.

Take for example Tabitha in the New Testament. The first time we meet her, she's dead. When Peter comes to her house, there's all these women gathered in her house, and they were showing him garments that she had made for them. And so we learn that this woman had a ministry for widows and she had a gift for sewing. Peter has been called to this woman who's dead and he's supposed to be raising her from the dead and there's all these women gathered around him showing him clothes. 

This was just a woman that liked to sew. And so she took this talent and she made things for widows and the impact that it had on her community when she died, they were all devastated because this was a kind and loving woman who sat at home and sewed for people. Peter brought Tabitha back, and the whole point of that story was to glorify God. It’s a beautiful story of someone who did what she could do with what she had.  

Sewing clothes wasn’t anything magnificent, but it was what she could do, and so she just did it quietly. Nobody paid any attention when she was alive, but she was impacting lives. 

What is interesting about this is that this story made it into the Bible. Why did God see fit to include this? 

It's to encourage us and a gift to women. He didn't just give Dorcus back to those widows in the story. He gave Dorcus back to us as women to understand that what we do does matter. It makes a difference. It's significant, and it's not overlooked by God. 

God sees those things that we do. 

God who sees, He sees it all. He knows where we're at. And even when we feel like our efforts are not making a big difference, they're making a big difference in someone's life.

What Dorcus was doing,, she may not have seen it as big, but yet many people came to know God because of it.  

We discuss how to embrace this attitude of serving in these ways (smaller or bigger), appreciating the fact that we've been given the opportunity to serve in these ways, when really we feel like it may not be enough. 

The work that God calls us to is not just for ourselves, and sometimes it's not for us at all. Sometimes we have work to do that is painful for us personally, but that lays the foundation or plants the seeds for a future harvest. 

Sometimes we have this vision of what our life is gonna be like and it does not turn out that way. But we're still faithful, we're still there. 

We're doing all we can, even when it feels like we're doing nothing. Even if we can't see it, and even if it's not doing the thing we wanted to do or what we thought we would be doing.

We probably have women listening today who are in a hard spot, experiencing loss or heartache like the women of the Bible.  But the women of the Bible give us hope in whatever situation we're in.  

One common thread we see among the women in the Bible is that a lot of times they were just going about their daily business, doing what they were always doing. 

And God met them where they were at, and He used them. 

And there were so many women that should not have been used by God, for all practical purposes. And yet God used these unlikely women, and he will use us too. 

Our lives, no matter who we are, can reflect a great God. And He is not limited by our limitations. He can use anybody. He uses us all and we can rest in that. 

Meet our Guest

Sharon Wilharm is a Christian speaker, Bible storyteller, and award-winning filmmaker. She is the host of All God's Women podcast and internationally syndicated radio show which can be heard on over 125 radio stations around the world. Sharon has enjoyed a lifelong fascination with women of the Bible and loves applying biblical stories to modern situations. She especially enjoys delving into lesser-known women and discovering encouraging truths for women of today.

Website: sharonwilharm.com

Social media: Facebook

Podcast: All God’s Women

Book: Women of Prayer

We want to encourage everyone listening to look up these women that we've been talking about in the Bible for yourself. Because you will be encouraged by them.