"Even in the shadow of death I will praise You. Even in the valleys I will say... Holy, my God, You are worthy of all my praise." ('All My Praise' by Selah)"Let all that I am praise the LORD; with my whole heart, I will praise His holy name." (Ps 103:1)
God alone is worthy to be praised, and He deserves all of us. No reservations, no exceptions, no holding back. I want to give Him all... my hopes & dreams, my desires, my plans, my comfort, my time & focus, my money & possessions, my heart. I want to lay everything down and sink roots deep into Him. Because He is the only One worth holding on to. And when we lay down our right to hold on to our lives, He supplies all we need, more than we could ever hold on our own.
"Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.'" (Mt 16:24-25)
I'm reading Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis, and the Lord has been teaching me much about surrender, about saying yes to Him.
"Every day, we have a choice. We can stay nestled in our safe and comfortable places... Or we can take a risk, do something to help someone else, make a person smile, change someone's world. Life to the fullest exists. It's available. All we have to do is decide to get up and embrace it.""God has a way of using inadequate people, and sometimes He calls us to reach a little higher or to stretch a little further, even when we feel we can't do any more. We simply trust Him. And then, He gives us everything we need to do the 'more' that He is asking of us."
He's showing me how much I hold on to my comfort, my time, my right to control this life He's given me. I hold on to a sense of entitlement that this life is actually mine. But in reality, I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. My life is hidden with Christ in God. This life is His, for the glory of His Name. And so He's teaching me what it means to be surrendered, to say yes to Him. Over and over He's been presenting me with opportunities to lay myself down and serve. From a friend needing a late-night ride and a place to stay, to being asked to help with a friend's outreach ministry when I really just wanted to rest, to being asked to retrieve the body of someone's relative who passed away at the hospital in the city and drive it to the village to be buried (yes, that really happened). While I didn't end up needing to follow through in these situations, each time I had to come to the point of saying yes, surrendering my will and opening myself up to being used as an instrument of His love. Offering all of myself in order for His power to work through me to accomplish more than I thought possible. And isn't that what faith is all about? Believing that He is all and more than enough, and trusting that He is entirely faithful. May we lay down our excuses and our entitlement, follow the voice of our Shepherd, and open up ourselves to be used by Him and for Him.
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2 comments:
Great Blog entry, Megan. :-)
(I also noticed that your blog doesn't have the new link icons on it like the other blogger blogs. On the other blogs, I can easily +1 the blog and share it on Google+, Facebook, Twitter, or Blogger.)
If you do want to add the icons to your blog, Go to draft.blogger.com and then click on your Blog's name right above "page views" in the page. It's about 1/3 of the way down. Then click on "Layout" and then click on the edit button where it says "Blog Posts" and then you can enable the show share buttons.
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