Learning

“I am learning that most things in life that are worth doing aren't going to be easy. Yet my flesh—my lazy, insolent, ugly flesh—continually hangs onto the thought that it should be easy.”

This quote from my devotion this morning hit me pretty hard. So often I feel the obvious, LOUD, but ever-so-gentle voice of God to submit myself a little – to turn off the Friends reruns and read the Bible for instance. Wow. What a concept. Being an ex-Bible college student and all, you’d think I’d have that one down!! Ha! Nope. Why do I fight so hard against the things I know are good for me? Will this always be a constant struggle? And what is so stinking hard about it anyway?

Sometimes I wish this whole seeking-God thing could be confined to popping some kind of a pill, or checking a box and clicking “submit”. I realize that sounds horrible, but it’s the truth. I’m programmed to want a program. But God cannot and will not be confined to my earthly, clean and tidy space I have made for Him. His ways, and His plans for us, are so far beyond what we could ever imagine. He wants to do in us and through us that thing – the one that has seemed so far away and so impossible.

The most intimate, beautiful, knock-my-socks-off moments I’ve had with Jesus have been the unexpected ones. I can think of times when I’d been holding on so tightly to my agenda and to what I thought should happen, only to be completely thrown off track and upside down because I couldn’t possibly hold on any longer – He changed me.

Freshman year at Bible School: I dressed the part, I talked the part, I truly thought I had it down. I loved God. I wanted His will, which of course was to follow the rules I’d been taught and marry a handsome preacher who would lead the cute little family we’d make into preachers-family bliss. People, let me tell you – I was thrown wayyyy off track. It all started in a Theology class with Dr. Segraves. We were going through the Book of Romans when suddenly the light came on and I realized that nothing I could DO would save me. Jesus had paid the price and I was saved by grace through faith.  It was undeniable. I was and always will be unworthy. I cannot save myself like I had been trying to for so long.

The journey to really, truly having faith – the kind of faith that allows you to lay down your misconceptions and preconceived ideas about God and simply trust – that has been and still is a long one.

I am so thankful that God does not fit in the box I have constructed for Him, cause it’s a pretty small one, and not anywhere near worthy of His kindness, grace, patience, love, and majesty.

 “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

 If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with,^[a] that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.¹The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. ¹Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. ¹Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.”
-Romans 6:1-14

Lord please help me to lay myself down and be willing to give in to what You have for me daily.