Take my life and let it be

I have been thinking back on the road we've traveled and can say that it's definitely not the way we thought it would go.

I can say with certainty that God has grown us in ways that we couldn't grasp a year ago.

Talking with Erin last night, we looked back at the way things have gone. It's easy to say "God I'm trying to do Your will. Open the door. Make it all work out." But the real spiritual growth has come from the hard things on this path. The mountains that we would love to have moved. I think back to the times I prayed to God, that in some mighty powerful way, He would work everything out. That we could say to our kids "See what God has done". While God does choose for those things to happen in our lives from time to time, it wasn't to be.

I often think that is the way things should go whenever I call on God. But the trying of our faith by patience grows our faith stronger. We pray and sing "Take my life and let it be all for you". But do we mean it? It was our desire that God would USE us on this Earth for His glory. So when He approached us about leaving our comfort zone, our family, our familiarity, our culture, everything...we had to stop and ask ourselves how much we really wanted to be used. It was convicting. And still is.

We have a saying as Apostolic's that "God is the Author and Finisher of our Faith". How many times have I stood over God's shoulder and told Him "Well, I don't want that to happen" "If the situation would turn out like this, that would be great" "I really don't like to feel uncomfortable" and so on.

I just watched a short skit by Frances Chan. He talked about how we go through things in life and we want everything to be "normal and safe". How we want to be Christians but don't want to inconvenience our lives. He talked about all these things while clinging to a balance beam. His arms and legs wrapped around it. No risks involved, no hurt or inconvenience follows. I know that I've been like this in the past and can default to this if I'm not living for Christ' Glory. S at the checkout lady and asking how her day is going is a small but mighty way to step out of my comfort zone, acknowledge there are souls around me and sharing my peaceful countenance with a hurting world.