Note: This first published, with some adaptations, on February 1st, 2018
Before I launch into today’s inspirational message, two invites! Have you subscribed to Faith Over Fear’s GodTube channel yet? You can do so HERE. And, my Your Daily Bible Verse team and I recently launched a GodTube channel as well on which we discuss truths presented on our podcast that week that most impacted us. Find us HERE.
And now to today’s content. 🙂
If God were calling me to a temporary fast, I could do it. Give up sugar? Ice cream? Television and technology? I wouldn’t forego those things easily, but I could do it. But this, what God’s calling me to release, indefinitely, feels harder than anything He’s asked of me before. This thing cuts to the core of my hopes and dreams, triggers insecurities and fear, and ultimately, reveals in which I haven’t fully trusted God.
So what is this thing that God calls me, persistently, to relinquish?
Control.
My agenda. My time and my to-do list. Whatever I’m striving for that keeps me from saying, at each moment, “Not my will, but Yours, Lord Jesus, be done.”
When I’m sitting with my Bible, reading of His love and care, meditating on all He’s done for me, yielding to the Spirit fills me with a sense of anticipation.
But then the day begins, and pricks of selfishness, doubt, and uncertainty weaken my resolve and hinder my obedience. My prayers sound more like complaints and long-winded requests than commitments to my Savior.
Perhaps because, while stuck in my head, where all the what-ifs run amuck, I forget that, at His core, my God is good. I’m reminded of Christ’s words in Matthew 16:25, when He said, “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.”
I know, from Scripture and history, that, sometimes, God indeed calls us to willingly give our lives in our allegiance to Him. I won’t deny that this present life can feel hard, heavy, and overwhelming. But I also know that Jesus endured the tortures of the cross for the joy set before Him. This, and everything He preserved in Scripture, tells me that all that awaits us, in Christ, will be infinitely more pleasurable and beautiful than anything we’ve ever experienced on this present earth, a thousand times over.
But I also believe the Lord leads us to filled and fulfilling life now, and we most experience that life by living it as He knows best.
I’ve discovered, If I want to be used by God and touch lives for eternity, my life must be touched first by the transforming power of God, the God who shows me how to love, and live, well.
This is the call. And it begins with a quiet, yet desperate plea, “Change me, Lord. Help me. Do whatever You need to within me to make me pliable in Your hands, a cleansed and open vessel ready to do Your will and Your will only. ”
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Let’s talk about this! Did anything resonate with you as you read today’s post? Is God asking you to lay down, or perhaps pick up, anything? What makes that hard? Share your thoughts and stories with us in the comments below, because we can all learn from each other!
