Giving Our All....then Taking it Back
“When you became a disciple of Jesus, you gave him all
you were and had. But have you gradually been taking it back?” –(Sinclair
Ferguson, To Seek and To Save). Such a true statement, and a question gives
me pause.
Easily, almost naturally, I gave Jesus everything I had when
I first experienced the call to discipleship. Was it because I didn’t have much
to give at the time? Perhaps. But I did have dreams, and those dreams were
cavernous. Yet I trusted Him with them. I moved where He led even if I moved
there alone. I studied what He directed me to study, even if it meant I would
put on pause the dreams of singing and acting on stage before an audience,
something that fueled and fed me and brought me delight. I broke up with boys
even when I wanted to date them. I left a little baby that my heart told me was
mine because, well, I knew he was technically my sister’s child, but more so
because I knew God was asking me to move to New York. And as I did these
things, I did them with joy and with hope and with faith
and trust in my God. Sure, there was a little fear, sometimes a lot of fear, of
the unknown and the ‘what if,’ but my fear was outweighed by a faith He’d
given me, a belief that He would show up and be the God He said He was…and He
always did just that.
But somewhere along the line, I let my fire be quenched. I
let the things of earth grow brighter instead of dim. I turned my eyes away
from Jesus and toward the things I wanted. I entertained thoughts like “you
have given Him so much, Megin, so of course He OWES you this. Of course you
DESERVE this,” and so I’d seek those “this” things: a house, a
better marriage, a child, more time to visit my family, more validation in
ministry, people seeing my point of view, the body I wanted, the reputation I
wanted, the checking account balance I wanted. “Surely He owed me those
things! I’d left all to follow Him!”
Naturally,
we give our all when we first fall in love with Him, when we first see Him.
Like when we first have a crush, didn’t you go all out when you liked a boy, or
liked a girl? Didn’t you do things outside your comfort zone?
A little side-story
to demonstrate my point:⇒ I’ve always loved sleep. I’ve coveted
it, and I’ve planned my schedule around sleep, making sure I had enough, and-
at times- worrying incessantly if I thought I wouldn’t get enough. It was like
my biggest fear was being tired. My friends in high school had this little word
of advice for any new friends we’d make: “Don’t keep Megin up [when she
wants to sleep], and don’t wake Megin up [when she is asleep].” Follow that
rule, and you’ll get along fine with Megin. I had plenty of sleepovers with my
girlfriends, all successful. They’d stay up till 3 a.m., but I was asleep by
10:30 p.m. They didn’t wake me up. I woke up myself, bright and early,
typically only a few hours after they had gone to bed. And then I tackled them
and woke them up wanting to play. And they, with their droopy eyes and 2 hours
of sleep, somehow stayed friends with me and loved me and played with me. Only
as I type this do I realize how much I honestly resembled a little puppy. Hmm.
ANYWAY, my
point is, I obviously cherished sleep, a LOT. Nonetheless,
when I’d have a new crush, I’d stay up as late as needed to hang out with them.
I once stayed up all night during college, playing a board game at the student center
simply because the boy I liked was playing it with some friends. If you know
me, you also know I don’t really like board games, at.all. Yet there I was
until 6 a.m. playing Risk even though I knew I had to travel out of town
the next morning to perform at a church with our traveling drama-ministry team.
I managed it… on no sleep. I was riding on fumes, pheromones, and a lot of
cherry coke.
When we are in love or intoxicated, infatuated,
with someone or something we naturally break our own boundaries- give our
all. But as time passes, and the emotions wane, so does our affinity to
give as much of ourselves.
I can remember when Jesse and I were dating, we would hang
out at my apartment. He didn’t have his license yet, and the public transit
back to his house was ridiculous, so I would drive him home. This often meant
staying up late, until our self-imposed curfews of around midnight, and then
driving him home to Fresh Meadows myself, and then having to
drive back to Forest Hills and hunt for parking at 12:30 a.m., (technically
the next day). This was no fun, but I did it because I liked him so much. One
night I even did it during a snow storm and ended up back in Forest Hills stuck
in the snow, with no snow shovel, and digging myself out with only a dust pan
that was, for some reason, in the trunk of my car. Eventually some dudes out
late after an evening of partying came and helped me. God took care of me. They
were nice gentlemen… drunk college guys if we’re honest, but very polite, and
willing to help out the young lady in her flannel kitty cat pjs and fake UGG
boots, crouched in the middle of the intersection of 63rd Avenue and
108th street. (Oh the stories I never told my father…the stories
he now reads on this blog, 10 years later).
After that night, I bought a snow shovel and told Jesse that
him getting his license was going on the ‘deal breaker’ list. But I
digress. The point is, I did it all for love. These days, Jesse
is lucky if I stay up 10 minutes past my self-imposed bedtime to have a
conversation with him in the warmth of our kitchen. DRIVE him somewhere at
night, in a snowstorm??? “No thanks. I can’t do that. My father probably
wouldn’t like it.”
And how it is like that with God. How we give Him so much
when we first sense the call, first experience Him, but then as life goes on,
the cares of this world push aside the passion that once carried us through
life. And we wonder why we suffer, why we are downcast, why everything is so
hard…. Perhaps it is because we have turned our eyes to things of this world to
give us energy and breath and turned our eyes away from the one who is the
literal birther of energy and breath- our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the One
for Whom we were made. He created us for Himself; it only makes sense that we
would find our utmost joy and delight living in communion with Him, living our
lives out for Him, the one Who created us, doing that which He created us to
do.
This devotion draws me in today, reminds, GIVE all you have
Megin. Do all you can Megin, but do it all for Christ, for His glory, not
looking to see if you can see that glory, but trusting that He of course accomplishes
it! Why wouldn’t He? Give your last two cents. Give everything in your wallet.
Dump it out, and do not worry about tomorrow. Worry only that your eyes are
firmly fixed, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim…. in the
light, yes IN the light, of HIS glory and grace. - Helen Howarth Lemmel
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