He asks me, and He has every right to. In surrender to Him, I gave up my life. I died. And when I died, He gave me real life.
In a country all about rights and freedom, I guess "surrender" and "giving up" are hard things to grasp. Even for the saved. I know it's hard for myself to grasp at times. Alot of times, actually.
But then I think about all that Jesus did for me. He gave up His rights when He left His throne, and He left it to come dwell with sinners like us. He left it to dwell with me. And then He died. When Someone's given everything for me, purchased me, how can I think I belong to myself? How can I think that I get to decide how I will spend my time, where my money will go, and who I will talk to?
I find that the more I'm immersed in this college atmosphere, the more I'm preached at about the need to fulfill my own wants and needs, to strive for what's "best" for me. And the more and more God asks me to give up everything, to give up myself, the harder and harder it is to be surrounded by the self-focused messages surrounding me. Because I've noticed something that happens when I start to believe these messages--it's like I'm being lulled to sleep, like a fog rests before the path I'm on. But not a severely blinding fog, and not an entirely uncomfortable sleep. The fog is just enough to make me think I'm okay without really listening to God's voice, and the sleep tunes my senses away from even really hearing Him speak. It's subtle, but it's a very dangerous place to be.
He's teaching me that He's given me life, and it's meant to be lived. Not slept through.
He's teaching me that He's given me sight, and its purpose is to open my eyes to the brokenness around me, and the sin in my own life.
So once again I plead for His mercy, and when He takes me back, I start to wonder why He ever would. "Love," is His usual one-word reply.
So trusting in His love, I bring Him my brokenness, and my failures, and hold out to Him the mess I've made, asking Him to turn it into something beautiful. And He is. He's slowly chipping away myself and giving Himself instead.
And He is Beautiful.
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