Sometimes, I look at the statistics of who comes to this blog. It is always fascinating to see the referring links–the pages people were when they “clicked” and came here. Typically, this comes out of a Google search. One of the most common Google searches that cause people to land here at this blog is the search parameters “Is God Doing a New Thing?” or some variant of that.
This morning, I saw another search parameter that touched my heart…someone asked Google this question, “Does God Want Me To Give Up Everything?”
I picture the tender, seeking heart of the one who typed this in the Google search box. I wish I could sit down with this person and share what a wonderful God waits with compassion to meet his/her concerns with his love, grace, and mercy.
Precious One, if you wonder if God wants you to give up everything, let me share this with you from the bottom of my heart. I believe it with all my being and my experience bears it out.
Yes, God calls us to give up everything. But it isn’t so that He may be a Cosmic Killjoy…some super powerful, high and mighty, “wet blanket” on all that delights your heart! He doesn’t look down from heaven, waiting through squinting eyes for you to smile and then say “We will have NONE of that!!!” as he takes his behemoth thumb and squashes you like a bug! That is NOT our God!
The reason he calls us to give up everything to follow him is entirely different! Our Lord wants us to cast off all of that to which we cling so that we might be free to dance! Our God wants us to kick up our heels! He knows that earthly concerns and material goods to which we tend to cling, actually keep us from being able to sashay through life in his arms! GOD WANTS US TO DANCE! He has caused the fetters to fall from our ankles! The chains are off our arms!
The video below features a music group called “Mary Mary.” The song they sing is called “Shackles – Praise You.” God has been using this song to inspire me to let loose and DANCE with Him!
I remember years ago when my son was quite young, we were at a neighborhood park. No one was around–it was a weekday and we homeschooled–so the park was all ours! We poured all his “Tonka” trucks out of a giant garbage bag into the sand. Bulldozers, dump trucks, front loaders…we had them all! Daniel was delighted.
However, twenty minutes into his reverie, a busload of pre-schoolers showed up. Daniel began to panic. I could see it on his face. He earnestly scampered around to gather his trucks back into a big pile. He then threw his body over the top of the pile as he looked around at the “invaders” suspiciously. He was immobilized not only from experiencing the joy that he had known, but he couldn’t move at all. No amount of coaxing on my part convinced him to let go. He was so worried about his stuff that he couldn’t interact with the other children, share his toys, and continue to play!
How like me this is. So often I get wrapped up in the things to which I cling…I think *this* is joy…then, when I have a chance to increase my delight all the more, the fact that there is an *ungodly* attachment to my stuff is revealed. That which I have enjoyed even becomes so like a chain, holding me down. Like my Daniel, I CLING to my “stuff.” “Stuff” may be behaviors, patterns, material things, people, emotions…anything at all. It may not be something “sinful” or “bad” in and of itself. But my *attachment* to those things IS the problem.
God wants me to cast off anything that hinders me from experiencing his best! Not so that he can *necessarily* take it away from me…but maybe so that I can be free to dance! If I praise HIM for the things he has allowed me to have, be, do in my life, how much freer am I not only to enjoy His blessings, but to enjoy HIM–in ways that I can not even fathom!
When my SOUL is set free from earthly attachments, when I release (there is that word again!) these things to Him, I am truly able to soar…to become what God intends…to thrill to life abundant.
Jesus didn’t come just so we could “barely make it” through life. He says he came to give us ABUNDANT life! This is something qualitative.
Are you experiencing the abundant life that the Lord intended you have? Are you dancing with your King? He waits…he wants this dance!!!
