This past weekend I learned a lot. It was a good weekend. One of the things that was excellent and garnered much discussion amongst the circle I run with was some discussion about giving your all to the Lord. The example used was that nobody would ever dream of talking about getting married and say, "Yeah, I'll pledge myself to this person 85%" or even 99%, truth be told. Marriage is supposed to be a 100% effort from both parties, and it seems absurd to think of someone promising just a portion of themself to their spouse-to-be.
But... really? Isn't that what we do to the Lord? We say we'll serve Him, and we do, but... only on our terms. We want to serve him with the part of ourselves we have left after we're done catering to our our whims. The Lord (obviously) deserves more than a half-hearted effort on our part to be His. He wants us, heart and soul, in entirety.
It's easy to want that. To want that relationship with the Lord, where all burdens, all decisions, all choices, are placed on the altar before Him. But when it comes down to it, we're mostly not willing to go that far. To give every aspect of our lives over to the Lord, to leave nothing for ourselves. It takes a complete willingness to give control. A complete willingness to surrender all. I love that hymn, "I surrender all" but when it comes down to it, I'm not able to say that I truly have surrendered my all.
I'm not my own, I'm bought with a price, but for some reason it wrongly feels like a price, rather than a privilege, to give back.
"Love will come to save us, if we'll only call, He will ask nothing of us, but demand we give our all." Lyrics from a great song from the Fireproof movie. They seemed quite fitting for my current thoughts.
And that's all. For now.
Showing posts with label consecration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label consecration. Show all posts
Monday, November 15, 2010
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
What wilt Thou have me to do?
For years, I've struggled with the concept of "What wilt Thou have me to do?" Basically, I understand the question, but how do we really know what the Lord is telling us in reply? I think it's just my stubbornness that has made me ponder it so much (want to talk about consecration? I am the wrong person to talk to that about, stubborn ol' me...), but it just seems... difficult.
One thing that always sort of got to me was about the whole when-I-grow-up-I'll-be-a-whatever question. For school, at the end of every year, my mom would have us write what we wanted to be when we grew up. For the first few school years of my life the answer was, without fail, "a missionary or a nurse," but once I was in about third grade, I realized that I didn't really want to be a missionary or a nurse. I wanted to be a "wife and mommy." By the time I got to twelfth grade I made it all sophisticated and wrote "homemaker" but the idea was essentially the same.
Which is all good and well, but that's the sort of thing that the Lord has to determine for you, at an appointed time (also good and well, don't get me wrong). So I've spent the last few years sort of floating around, doing random jobs and enjoying myself thoroughly. Also fine. But there was one thing that always sort of got to me--what was I really doing with my life?
Well, I still have no idea what the answer to that question is, but this isn't so much about what I'm doing with my life as what I'm letting the Lord do with my life.
Last Wednesday there were a lot of remarkably helpful comments made, one of which sort of eased my mind about what I was doing with myself these days. They were reading from Ephesians 2:10 "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."
They were pointing out that every work we do is specialized and prepared, and God has a very specific path He wants each one of us to travel. Basic stuff, true. But then someone made the remark to the effect of, "You know, kids today try to decide what to do based on what they're good at, which doesn't make a bit of sense, because they're really supposed to be doing whatever God wants them to do, not what they want to do."
As an aside, anybody who knows anybody in my meeting can guess who this might have been (one hint, it wasn't my dad).
Anyhow, there was more to it than that, but it was a good thought for me, one I needed to be reminded of. I'm in insurance right now, which is weird, and certainly not something I would have chosen of my own accord. But that's OK, because for some odd reason, this is where the Lord has me. I was enjoying the verse from Ecclesiastes 9 about, "whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." For some reason, my hand has found insurance, and I need to make sure that I do it to the best of my ability so that I might honour the Lord.
Which is scary to me, honestly. Because it means that I've got to work extremely hard to make up for what I lack in common insurance sense. But... I can do all things through Christ Who gives me strength!
One thing that always sort of got to me was about the whole when-I-grow-up-I'll-be-a-whatever question. For school, at the end of every year, my mom would have us write what we wanted to be when we grew up. For the first few school years of my life the answer was, without fail, "a missionary or a nurse," but once I was in about third grade, I realized that I didn't really want to be a missionary or a nurse. I wanted to be a "wife and mommy." By the time I got to twelfth grade I made it all sophisticated and wrote "homemaker" but the idea was essentially the same.
Which is all good and well, but that's the sort of thing that the Lord has to determine for you, at an appointed time (also good and well, don't get me wrong). So I've spent the last few years sort of floating around, doing random jobs and enjoying myself thoroughly. Also fine. But there was one thing that always sort of got to me--what was I really doing with my life?
Well, I still have no idea what the answer to that question is, but this isn't so much about what I'm doing with my life as what I'm letting the Lord do with my life.
Last Wednesday there were a lot of remarkably helpful comments made, one of which sort of eased my mind about what I was doing with myself these days. They were reading from Ephesians 2:10 "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."
They were pointing out that every work we do is specialized and prepared, and God has a very specific path He wants each one of us to travel. Basic stuff, true. But then someone made the remark to the effect of, "You know, kids today try to decide what to do based on what they're good at, which doesn't make a bit of sense, because they're really supposed to be doing whatever God wants them to do, not what they want to do."
As an aside, anybody who knows anybody in my meeting can guess who this might have been (one hint, it wasn't my dad).
Anyhow, there was more to it than that, but it was a good thought for me, one I needed to be reminded of. I'm in insurance right now, which is weird, and certainly not something I would have chosen of my own accord. But that's OK, because for some odd reason, this is where the Lord has me. I was enjoying the verse from Ecclesiastes 9 about, "whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." For some reason, my hand has found insurance, and I need to make sure that I do it to the best of my ability so that I might honour the Lord.
Which is scary to me, honestly. Because it means that I've got to work extremely hard to make up for what I lack in common insurance sense. But... I can do all things through Christ Who gives me strength!
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