in the fury of the moment

if you have the faith ...

I have been thinking more and more lately about what it really means to totally surrender something to God. There is one area in my life in particular that I have been wrestling with quite a bit. The other day I read in Genesis 32 the story of Jacob wrestling with God through the night, and I thought about how Jacob seemed to realize that he wasn’t winning by wrestling on his own, so he stepped wrestling in his own strength and instead clung to this Man until the Man (God) agreed to bless him. I have read this story before, but never really tried to apply it to my life too much.

I have always been struck by the story of Abraham and his willingness to sacrifice Isaac if that was what God required. I have things in my life that I feel I have exhibited that sacrificial attitude with, but if I’m honest with myself I realize there are more things that I still hold on to and with which I refuse to even get close to that "Mount of Sacrifice". I hold on to things and people and try to figure out what to do, and I ask God to give me wisdom and guidance and clarity. But instead what I get from God is the prompting to bring these things to Him and leave them there. I may do that for a time – for an hour or a day or maybe even a week … but more often than not, I end up going back to them and trying to wrestle out a solution. If I really surrender them as I feel He’s calling me to do, they won’t be anything that I can worry about or try to figure out, because they’ll be in His hands (and not mine).

Something I am praying about increasingly is that God will help my faith to grow. I know that if I have the faith of a mustard seed, I will be able to move mountains and do amazing things. But imagine if my faith is even bigger than that … even when I think about how small my life really is in light of eternity, it astounds me to think what things God could do if I had a greater and stronger faith in Him and His ways. And part of this faith is learning to surrender my life, my heart, my will … my all … to God, and to LEAVE IT THERE. I have said often that this life is one that needs to be lived with open hands, and that is what I long to do, with every single facet of my existence.

I have been thinking and praying about this stuff for the past few days, and then the other night my devotions spoke directly to this idea. Here’s a quote from a recent reading:

We will not get victory in prayer until we too cease our struggling, giving up our own will and throw our arms about our Father's neck in clinging faith.

What can puny human strength take by force out of the hand of Omnipotence? Can we wrest blessing by force from God? It is never the violence of willfulness that prevails with God. It is the might of clinging faith, that gets the blessing and the victories. It is not when we press and urge our own will, but when humility and trust unite in saying, "Not my will, but Thine." We are strong with God only in the degree that self is conquered and is dead. Not by wrestling, but by clinging can we get the blessing.
--J. R. Miller

posted by Krista @ 9:21 AM