RE: A Pilgrimage of Grace - Anything

A friend of ours in Houston wrote a blog post that I felt really spoke to me about surrender. (Even now, I am mulling this over.) it started out as a comment on her blog and quickly grew up, so instead this post is dedicated the the Bettis's and I will be posting a link to this in their comment site. So double reading duty today...

And now RE: Grace Pilgrimage - Anything (http://www.agracepilgrimage.blogspot.com/2013/04/anything.html) take the time to read it please, and then read this.

Hey Amy,
Thanks for the thoughts on "anything/ everything".
If I may, as you referenced me I figured it would be ok, to say something... If not just delete the comment.
I have found that in accepting God into my life, at the place of the alter where I ran one night and placed everything I owned in God's hands is when the process really began.
The process of giving God everything happened that night. The illusion that if I want control over things, like kids, health, money, dreams, desires, is something that the great deceiver continues to whisper in our ears. What does it matter if you have a 56" TV? I know! You can use it to host movie nights at your house, help the youth group, and when they aren't using it, then you can veg in front of it right? It's helping God and you also get some side benefit to it! Win-win. You know God likes a win-win situation! (Lie... As you pretty much say in your post. god wants it ALL!)

The deeper you end up going into your walk with Christ the more and more God will say, as you are strolling about your life, "hey, what about that thing?" And point to something you have lovingly put up on a shelf somewhere. Oh... That... You'll look at it and might be like, "yeah, I can get rid of that." And off it'll go and you'll feel better. Or you won't, you'll grab something else and give that "anything" instead. Either way God starts to do it more and more. Stuff and money is a good place to start, and then suddenly there is time He wants you to give. That costs a lot...

The point is there are people who will feel the call, be able to drop it all and run. Then there are most folks who are going to need that gradual road to everything/anything. I would say my road started in 7th grade, but in the last 6 years of cancer fighting (6 years of cancer btw, 8 years of marriage) God has asked me for my life. At first it was like, ok, my life. Like heading up to the alter with Abraham. I'll look boldly in the face of death and God will snatch me from it. I will have survived, maybe given some stuff, had an experience, and now I am God's to do whatever with as he pleases.

And then I got sick again after the first time. A little confused, we went down some of those roads again. Learned some deeper lessons, aaand... No healing as of yet. Ummm, Lord, I said you could take anything, but if you take my life then I won't have anything else to give you here on Earth. I have given you everything I could possibly give you. My life is the last thing Lord, and I hold that so incredibly dear... Do I even have a chance? Could I say,"no, I want my life" and walk away unscathed from all this? Knowing I had to deny Christ to do it? Or is keeping to what God has told me to do and pursue going to really be the death of me? I don't know. But I have been picking God for the last many years and He promised to see me through to completion, so I aim to be there when He does. After all no one escapes death, you might be surrounded by stuff or by nothing, but in the end you leave with nothing. In the end God has the everything, and I have the nothing. Anything that COULD have been His is now His.

In thinking about this, as my time (scientifically) dwindles (i still am very excited to see what God does through this cancer, healing or not) on this earth "stuff" the everythings and the anythings, become less and less important. The process has been gradual for me though. I didn't wake up and dump it all one morning. (That can lead to a dangerous source of pride as well) it was a slow calling by God to become closer to him. Give up video game tome for prayer time. Drop that fiction time travel novel and study Daniel instead. Instead of reading the news, calling someone and trying to catch up with them in person, or at the every least a direct and personal email. These are choices towards the anything and everything.

Is it hard? Sometimes, very. Sometimes it is far, far more rewarding than you can even put a quantifier on. But as a Child of God it's a place He calls us to be, and He DOES know what is best for us. Despite what we think sometimes. And it's not easy, but in looking back would you rather have a bunch of stories about what God has done with you? Or a bunch of stories about what God did despite of you?

Thanks Amy for the words and the thoughts. You obviously inspired me to write a bit more. (Some fact setting: we were married almost 2 years when I was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer that turned our world upside down. Fact 2: we moved back to Seattle last week, after deciding to move back the week before. Talk about some quick everything and anything moments!) Check out the blog (http://www.802heaven.com) for more details on everything, i've been writing this whole thing up for the past 6 years. Perhaps a book to come before God calls me home. We'll see what He allows for.

Thanks for letting me sound off Amy.

~B.


Sent from my iPad

~B.
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