Like I said in the previous post, God’s been teaching me this for a little over a year now, but finally I’m beginning to put the pieces together (you don’t know how relieving that is!). So what exactly have I been learning?
Lets start with the little things, the easy things. God wanted even the little things in my life that I was holding on to. At the time giving those to God was hard, but as time went on I realized they were a whole lot easier than what he would eventually ask me to give.
My looks. Seriously, that sounds really simple right? But it wasn’t. I don’t exactly look like one of those fake Hollywood models (and who does anyway) and God started to show me that I cared a little too much about what I looked like and that I cared a little too much about gaining attention from other people. If I cared more about what others thought of me, it would hinder me from doing risky things for Christ. That still small voice kept nagging me about that fact. But being my stubborn self, I didn’t want to give up my looks and my clothes. The main reason: I like attention. I like people complementing my fashion sense. I thought “If I let God have this he’s gonna ruin my sense of fashion and I’ll be a flop.” HOW STUPID IS THAT, SERIOUSLY!? But one thing after another that started happening finally convinced me that clothes really don’t matter so much after all. And in actuality I haven’t lost my fashion sense at all. It just doesn’t consume my life as much.
My driver’s license. Like I said, God even wants the little things. I could have taken my driver’s test in March of ’08, but I didn’t want to take it in the family van. I wanted my own car! I wanted a cool car that people would look at and be like “woahh nice car.” Well that obviously didn’t happen. We did get a car for a decent price and it wasn’t sporty or fast, but when I saw it I actually fell in love with it (in whatever way you fall in love with a car). It’s a 2001 VW Golf and I did name HIM: Red Riley the Volkswagen, or Riley for short. I thank God for him almost every time I drive him. So back to the license. First driver’s test – FAILED. Why? Because I hit the curb parallel parking.
Yes, in Pennsylvania that is an automatic fail. I still to this day think that is the dumbest way to fail a driver’s test EVER! First off, how many people parallel park after they get their license anyway (I may have done it once and just to make sure I still knew how)? And still, how many people do you see hitting the curb or worst yet, parked up on the curb?? BUT ANYWAY…so I tried again – FAILED. Yes, I hit the curb again. That really made me feel dumb, but it had to be just nerves since I could parallel park anywhere on the side of a rode, but not at the DMV. People say third times the charm right? Well more like 3rd time I made sure that I talked to God about it before hand, not afterward.
I remember telling him that it really didn’t matter to me anymore whether I got my license this time or not. He’d already broke my pride in being a good driver so what’s the use of trying to prove it to myself or to other people? I also decided that I wouldn’t worry so much about the test, because I didn’t care. Well I passed this time and I still remember looking out of the corner of my eye at the guys face when I parallel parked and he said I passed and I was like “Whoo Thank you Jesus!”
So though the driver’s license experience God showed me that I’m just a little too overconfident in myself at times, thinking I can do it. I, is the key word. We can’t do anything, only though Christ can we accomplish anything and God had to show me that once again the hard way. Since then I try to make sure I give him the glory when I do something, because it really isn’t me.
In August, something bigger started to happen both in my life and my family’s. It started when Dad lost his job. That came as a shock and like a bolder hitting our heads. Gas was $4 a gallon and I didn’t have a job to pay for my own gas and we had places to go. Well we couldn’t go shopping as much or just go running whenever we wanted to, because money had to be conserved. We started praying together as a family, but that didn’t last too long, since we all have our own schedules. But still, I remember the day we sat down and made a list of things that we’d like to ask God to provide. And to this day EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM has been answered. Dad is working on a friend’s farm which helps with paying the bills. God gave us a wood stove for the winter (which I look back on and think that is the biggest miracle of them all). And praise God gas prices went down to just around $2 a gallon.
In my life, I started praying for some sort of job that I could work around my schedule, preferably a morning job (which I could only do because I’m home-schooled). God provided different babysitting jobs for me so I could pay for gas for Riley and part of his insurance bill. I could probably go on and on about everything that God did, and those first 4 or 5 months are only a testimony that “My God will supply all our needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19)
I may be making this sound simple and easy, or you may be thinking that you could never do something like this, but I’ll be the first to tell you that I didn’t think something like this could happen or that it would ever happen. I’m just summarizing the thoughts and emotions of it, because it would take weeks to write everything. There were days, weeks that I wondered “What is God trying to do?” “What is he trying to teach us?” The questions seemed unanswered, but looking back I see that they are answered. God was teaching us reliance on himself. Trust in him to take good care of us, even if it’s not the way we want it to go.
There were nights I just wanted to curl up under a rock and forget it all. Pretend it was all a dream, because in a dream I can make up the ending. Many nights would I lie in bed, tears rolling down my cheeks wondering when this was gonna end. If it would end?
God was saying “Trust me, I will watch out for you. Follow me and You will be blessed.” “Give me your money; it’s not yours to begin with. I blessed you with it, to be used in my glory.”
Finally saying: ‘'God, you can take this whatever and however you want and I will still praise you’' didn’t come easy, but I will say that it was someone else’s pain, journey that inspired me to do it. A couple at our church, Dustin and Jerri Martin, had a baby on December 5, 2008. Named Todd H. Martin. He was born with HLHS (Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome) and passed away on December 29, 2008. They kept a blog on the journey of experiences (which I’ll add here gave me the idea for my own). Every day I would check this blog to see the updates of the baby and read their emotions of the day etc. After Baby Todd died seeing how they handled it and even during the whole pregnancy after they found out about his condition. They never gave up and trusted God to have a plan bigger than they could imagine behind it. At Todd’s memorial service, the song Bring the Rain was performed by Jerri’s niece and her brother’s. I loved that song already, but in that moment hearing it thinking through the words it hit home inside very quickly.
When I say “God no matter what happens, I will still praise you and if it takes trails and pain and heartbreak to praise you Bring it on…Bring me ANYTHING that brings you glory.” Do I mean it? Do I really mean it, or do I just say that, hoping that God will accept it and not send me anything bad to test whether I mean it or not?
February brought along something from the hearts of many of the youth in our church. We had a Youth Sunday where we took over the entire service. In picking a theme, one of my good friends said that what was on her heart was ‘Hunger and thirst for the Lord.’ We had discussions in what song to do for the human video and ended up (after we tried to find a ‘better’ song) doing Third Day’s: Cry Out to Jesus. The song came over AMAZING and we’ve performed it multiple times since then.
At the end of the service, one of my best friends, Natalie (who had the idea of the song in the first place) talked about being satisfied with where you are in your walk with the Lord. She told a story she heard about a frog:
This frog lived in a well and one day he looked up to the top of the well and saw a bright light. He wondered “What is out there?” so he climbed up the well and there was a pond! He was so excited and he swam across the pond and found a Lake! He got even more excited about the Lake, but he saw something farther out, so he swam across the Lake and there was the ocean! More water than he’d ever seen in his whole life. But if the frog would have just been comfortable in his little well, and never stepped out in faith, he would have missed the ocean.
That’s the way it is with so many Christians. We’re comfortable where were are, with how things are going that we don’t want to take that risky step of faith from the well to the pond. Satisfied with God and where we are currently. We don’t want to move, we don’t want to forsake, leave everything we’ve ever know for Christ. What would other people look at us and think? What sort of criticism will we get???
What about God? Do you think about his side? What he wants to do in your life if you take that one little step of faith? Do you know what your ‘ocean’ is?
I will never forget either Charlie Ness or Steve Shank saying that if you are satisfied with where you are in your faith, you shouldn’t even be in church. Seriously though, that is a very good point.
I’ve thought about that a lot. Am I actually satisfied with where I am with Christ at the moment? Do I want more? Am I thirsty?
Friday, March 6. We hosted a concert of prayer at our church. That was a pretty amazing night in and of itself. We broke up into little prayer groups and prayed for all sorts of things, but all centering around the Valley (as Becky called it). In my group we talked a lot about tradition and how churches in America seem to be just ‘going through the motions’ more and more. They have become somewhat satisfied with where they are. Those in our prayer group were in one heart that we need to be awakened more. Those of us that have a hunger for more of God want to be awakened more, to have more hunger and more thirst for him so that it will just begin to spill out to others. With that in mind we set out praying for a new awakening of fire and passion to be ignited in people of our church and of other churches in the area.
Later that night, while the girls spent the night at church, I was thinking hard about this. “Do I really want more of the Lord? Do I hunger and thirst after him? Am I willing to do whatever he says, go wherever he leads if he will give me even more hunger for him?”
I couldn’t answer my own question. I really didn’t know where I was. I could say yes, I would do that, but in when faced with the choice I’d probably back out. I knew that was the wrong answer, I shouldn’t even be thinking it, but how many of us actually do think that?
Tuesday, March 24. Those of you there remember everything that happened. Totally a God-thing. When it was over, sitting there in the pew in the front with the people I love most(minus Dori who missed it), I finally felt it! I felt that hunger. That thirst. I felt it! I felt a passion for others to feel the same thing I felt. For others to feel the fire that burned inside for more of God. MORE MORE MORE!
I don’t know if it started before or after that night, but there’s been dissatisfaction with where I am with God. I want more. I need more! Anything. It’s come to the point that I’m willing, if it be God’s will to leave behind everything I love dearly. The things I’m still holding on to. Surrendering them all to get something better from the Lord.
The phrase ‘Reckless Abandonment’ comes to mind here (And if you don’t see God’s hands on all this…you need to open your eyes). A group of girls started a Bible Study on the book Lady in Waiting by: Jackie Kendall & Debby Jones. It’s a study through the book of Ruth. Well, so far it has been the perfect book for me to read right now (other than the Bible). Ruth tasted just a little of the Lord and she left everything behind her to move to a place she’s never been. How much more of God have I tasted and am I so willing to leave?
Well, to be honest I was doing ok through the first chapter till I got to a question that I couldn’t answer. “Could holding on to something possibly be keeping you from having open hands to receive something better from the Lord?” That stumped me. I knew inside that yes holding on would keep me from getting something better, but I didn’t want to voice it out of fear that God would make me give that up too. Well we all know how God works and he just started working his ideas into my head and my heart.
Then the big question came one day when I walked into the kitchen.
Would I move cross country?
Talk about a great way to wake up. I didn’t know, I couldn’t answer right away. That had to be the hardest question of them all. I thought about it and thought about it and thought about it. Everything that has been happening in the past months, I believe, was preparing me for this moment. Pieces started to make sense, emotions that I couldn’t understand started, finally to become clear to me.
Surrender.
I’d already given God my weight, looks, social status, car, money, love life, future, and so much more, what else could he ask for? What more could he want? He wants what I hold on to and dear the most. My home.
Pretty much he wants my heart. Am I willing to tear out my own heart and hand it over to him? Can I surrender that? This was probably one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make. But the question “Could holding on to something possibly be keeping you from having open hands to receive something better from the Lord?” kept popping back into my head. What if I gave God what he’s asking for? Would he have something better in store?? Can I trust him to do that?
I decided that if God is calling. I will go. Setting aside everything I hold on to. The things I love most. To follow after God. In my mind I see (maybe a vision) a golden, bright shinnying light, in the shape of a cross. It’s something more beautiful than I’ve ever seen. Something I can’t even begin to describe to you, and I feel the beckoning to follow. To walk to it. To follow it. Because when I reach it, my life will be fulfilled. I will find satisfaction. It is a journey of reckless abandonment and total surrender to Christ’s control.
I have a question for you: Is there something you’re holding on to that could keep you from receiving more from the Lord? Are you satisfied with where you are? Or do you hunger and thirst after God to be willing to set aside that which you love the most in order to find him?
Somewhere in the Middle- Casting Crowns
Somewhere between the hot and the cold
Somewhere between the new and the old
Somewhere between who I am and who I used to be
Somewhere in the middle, You'll find me
Somewhere between the wrong and the right
Somewhere between the darkness and the light
Somewhere between who I was and who You're making me
Somewhere in the middle, You'll find me
Just how close can I get, Lord, to my surrender without losing all control
Fearless warriors in a picket fence, reckless abandon wrapped in common sense
Deep water faith in the shallow end and we are caught in the middle
With eyes wide open to the differences, the God we want and the God who is
But will we trade our dreams for His or are we caught in the middle
Are we caught in the middle
Somewhere between my heart and my hands
Somewhere between my faith and my plans
Somewhere between the safety of the boat and the crashing waves
Somewhere between a whisper and a roar
Somewhere between the altar and the door
Somewhere between contented peace and always wanting more
Somewhere in the middle You'll find me
Just how close can I get, Lord, to my surrender without losing all control
Lord, I feel You in this place and I know You're by my side
Loving me even on these nights when I'm caught in the middle
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