Growing up in a christian home, I learned very quickly the difference between right and wrong and I learned those things "by the seat of my pants" as they say! My parents had a strong grip on the ole "spare the rod spoil the child" verse and regardless of what else may go wrong, that was one they held on to and truly lived out daily...for some of us (Brad and me) they lived it out "hourly". I also learned about repentance and the importance of making changes in order to better please God and live a Godly life. As an adult, when the worldly desires and ways began to take hold of me, I began to feel the pressure and conflict created between the things I knew to be morally and spiritually right and the "earthly" things that I had come to enjoy. Enter CHILDREN!!! I began to search for the way to end the discomfort of my conscience and in doing so I found an amazing church family. Soon after my involvement with my church family I began to feel a burning desire to serve the Lord in a greater capacity than my home and daily life. While this was exciting and all, I knew that I still had lots of things in my life that were holding me back. SOOOOO like any good praying, christian girl I began to "give those things to God". That is what I had been instructed to do my my spiritual advisers and by those strong Christians that I so badly wanted to be in cohoots with. I prayed and I prayed and I asked God to take those bad things away and I could not understand why my desire for worldly things was not being quenched...I was after all "giving them to God". Then I stumbled on a few other people who I immediately began to read and study about. I heard them speak, I read the books by the people who inspired them into action and I began to see a different way to serve, and oh how that fire got bigger! Then one Wednesday night it all began to click for me and I had the greatest epiphany that a person can have...the fog cleared and I saw the answers so clearly to what had been my biggest struggles in my personal desire to change. My pastor devotes our Wednesday night service to PRAYER. How to pray, when to pray, what to pray, and how to put the power and authority of God in your heart through prayer and reading God's Word. He said one night..."There are people in this room that the Lord wants as servants, and I pray that as God continues to call you them they will hear it and be in prayer about being his servant. If you will pray that God reveal his plan for your life and pray that he will turn you into the servant that he desires you to be, then God will transform you." (some paraphrasing here but you get the picture) When I heard these words I immediately realized that I had been going about this all wrong. God wants to work on ALL of me...not just the warts! So I began to pray just like Brother C.R. told me to. I began to pray that God make me his servant. I would lift up my desire to spread his Glory and that my deepest desire was to serve him. Without knowing it, the Lord has been working on me for the last year, but since I began to pray that prayer, he has become "a better Ty Pennington in a new version of EXTREME MAKEOVER... the HEART AND SOUL EDITION"
Example:
Pre Servants Prayer....Teachers are paid 1time per month. I had been known to be what my mother lovingly term as a "clothes horse" (translation: a clothes hoarder completely driven by need to have new clothing at least once per week....maybe more...or at least until my money ran out!) This need resulted in my checkbook being a sad sad place approximately 10 days after payday with 20 painful days remaining to survive before the next check where to process would repeat itself once more. After I was married, you could immediately insert the words "arguing" after painful because JY was none to happy with the fact that he had to give me money for the remaining 3 weeks of the month!
Post Servants Prayer....Still only being paid 1 time per month. With the exception of a Christmas dress, I have not made a clothing purchase in a very long time, and I really had not even noticed until one day at school. A girl at school asked me "Why don't you wear all your crazy, cute, funky clothes anymore...I miss them" my response was..."I don't really know...I guess I just don't think about it really." This conversation made me take notice of a complete shift in my thinking and I realized that gone were the days when getting up in the morning centered on what I was going to wear, and what looked cute. I really did not think about that anymore...replaced was..."Lord, please allow me the honor and privilege of showing someone your love today" and "Father, make me your servant so that I can bring you people into your kingdom."
It was the blink of an eye and all that focus on me was gone, replaced with "what else can I do for my Savior". I had not even missed it or noticed it changed! The Lord will heal your afflictions, he will answer your prayers, and he will make you his servant, but what I have learned this past few weeks is that God doesn't only want the WARTS, he wants the good things too! He wants to use us for his purpose but you have to give him your life....the bad and the good! Surrender doesn't just mean give him your troubles, he wants those but he wants your happiness, your praise, your acknowledgment that he is your creator. He gave us the good and the bad for his purpose and until we give him our heart, he can not use them for his glory.
James 4:7
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Example:
Pre Servants Prayer....Teachers are paid 1time per month. I had been known to be what my mother lovingly term as a "clothes horse" (translation: a clothes hoarder completely driven by need to have new clothing at least once per week....maybe more...or at least until my money ran out!) This need resulted in my checkbook being a sad sad place approximately 10 days after payday with 20 painful days remaining to survive before the next check where to process would repeat itself once more. After I was married, you could immediately insert the words "arguing" after painful because JY was none to happy with the fact that he had to give me money for the remaining 3 weeks of the month!
Post Servants Prayer....Still only being paid 1 time per month. With the exception of a Christmas dress, I have not made a clothing purchase in a very long time, and I really had not even noticed until one day at school. A girl at school asked me "Why don't you wear all your crazy, cute, funky clothes anymore...I miss them" my response was..."I don't really know...I guess I just don't think about it really." This conversation made me take notice of a complete shift in my thinking and I realized that gone were the days when getting up in the morning centered on what I was going to wear, and what looked cute. I really did not think about that anymore...replaced was..."Lord, please allow me the honor and privilege of showing someone your love today" and "Father, make me your servant so that I can bring you people into your kingdom."
It was the blink of an eye and all that focus on me was gone, replaced with "what else can I do for my Savior". I had not even missed it or noticed it changed! The Lord will heal your afflictions, he will answer your prayers, and he will make you his servant, but what I have learned this past few weeks is that God doesn't only want the WARTS, he wants the good things too! He wants to use us for his purpose but you have to give him your life....the bad and the good! Surrender doesn't just mean give him your troubles, he wants those but he wants your happiness, your praise, your acknowledgment that he is your creator. He gave us the good and the bad for his purpose and until we give him our heart, he can not use them for his glory.
James 4:7
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
No comments:
Post a Comment