Tuesday, June 9, 2009

I say “Yes!”

I've wanted to post again for months now, but somehow the words have never come together. I'm not sure that I will have much more success tonight but I am going to try. Sometimes I just need to start writing in order for my thoughts to make any sense. Yet perhaps they don't need to make sense. I am recognizing some of the paradoxes of the Christian life these days… Some things don't make sense in the mind but bring life to the soul.

God is doing a refining it me. Sometimes when I'm lying in bed at night or sitting alone in a quiet house I wonder what the end product will look like, but most of the time I am too busy to ponder this at great length. I think I let living get in the way of Life. I want to change that. I want Life to come first.

God is asking something of me. He is asking me to take surrender to a new level. The problem is, I'm still not sure what He means by that. I have done a wonderful job of coming up with options, all of which would require a good deal of giving up all and walking by faith… yet somehow He remains quiet, simply asking if I'm willing to do it.

"What is 'it' Lord?" I plead, over and over, "I want to do it! Tell me what 'it' is!"

It could mean staying home the next couple years and simply working and praying, giving away all the money I own. I might feel that my life was useless. Would I do it?

It could mean giving up all my plans for July, all my trips to see my closest friends and them coming to see me, and going instead to some third world country to hold starving children and tell them of Jesus. Would I do it?

It could mean more than a summer missions trip. It could mean actually moving to Haiti or Uganda, choosing to live there the rest of my life and never seeing my family and friends again. It could mean living in poverty and simply doing all I could to bring life and heath and love to the hopeless and abandoned.

It could mean living here, working at CHESS, going to college, teaching elementary classes, leading a bible study, reaching out to girls with hurts in their lives, fellowshipping with friends, singing in choir, and loving my family. Could it really? Could that be "all" God asks of me? It could, and part of me thinks that would be even hard than the previous options. It would be so simple to slip back into living as nominal Christian, where God has most of me, but not quite all. It would be so easy to serve Him during the day yet claim my evenings and weekends as my own. It would be harder to stay here. But is that what He is asking of me?

It could mean giving up phone time and chat time and email time and visit time with my dear, Christ-like, edifying friends so that I may more closely focus on the call of God on my life. Ouch. Would I do it?

It could mean lots of things. I would like to think I would do any of them. I would like to think that I would respond "Yes, Lord!" no matter what He asked and follow obediently, and even excitedly, no mater how painful or drastic His request. I would like to think I would. But would I really?

I am currently being saturated with stories of great women of faith like Amy Carmichael, Gladys Alward, Jackie Pullenger, and many others who gave (or are giving) their lives daily for the cause of Christ. These are woman who chose to take up their crosses and follow their Master. I have heard of young men who sold themselves as slaves to share Jesus with slaves, knowing they would never return and declared "May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering!"

"It is the life that has no time for trifling that counts" – Amy Carmichael

"I lack nothing. I have everything – everything I want in Christ. But that is not true for the world" – Jackie Pullenger

"Ask not how little, but how much can love give?" – Amy Carmichael

"The gospel always brings life to the receiver and death to the giver. If it killed Him to give life to us, and He invites us to do the same, why should we expect any less?" – Jackie Pullenger

"There is no gain except by loss, no life except by death" – Amy Carmichael

"If I covet any place on earth but the dust at the foot of the cross, then I know nothing of Calvary love" ~ Amy Carmichael

"Tell me in the light of the Cross, isn't it a scandal that you and I live as we do?" – Alan Redpath

It seems to me that the great Deceiver has utterly convinced us that we could never live as these men and women and needn't even try. But I believe we can, and more than that, we must. I read stories about girls younger than me such as Katie Davis, an average American girl who has become the mommy of 13 children in Uganda and I know God has created us for more. We owe Him no less. He bought our very lives with His blood – we are His to do with as He wills. Do we realize that? And do we live in light of this realization?

I choose to stand with Amy Carmichael and Katie Davis and Jackie Pullenger and say that my God can have all of me –all, truly all. He has all of me and can send me to Haiti or Hawaii, lead me through Heaven or Hell, keep me home, I will follow. I say this with confidence, not because I am confident of my own strength, but because He who has begun a good work in me will complete it. I am willing, and He will make me string. I give my life to be a living death and know that it will be the best life I could live. It's one of those paradoxes I mentioned. Isn't it beautiful? May Hell tremble and Heaven rejoice. I don't expect it to be glamorous, I just expect it to be Life. This is how I choose to live.

Heaven help me.

God show me what this means.

But I say yes.