Marching Orders
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2008
I’ve had a bit of tough time today. I just couldn’t seem to get a handle on anything. It did not go at all as I had hoped! Today is one of those days where I wish that I could have a little more control over my life. Oh, who am I kidding? I wish that I could have control. I want to take the lead. I want to determine how my days will be spent. I want to make sure that everything will go just as I had planned! I do not like to feel like everything is falling apart around me. I want to be able to do something about it. I want to be able to fix everything that is broken, and then maybe at the end of the night when I lay my head down on my pillow I would be able to sleep a little more peacefully!
WHATEVER! I don’t know what I could possibly be thinking! Me, have control of my life? If I had control, everything would be more chaotic than it already is!! As a matter of fact, I happen to know that when I do try to take over, things have a tendency to go into a severe tailspin! So, who then should I be giving control to?
Well, for the answer let me refer you to Mark 14:36 when Jesus is praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, before he is arrested. Actually, just to give you an idea of the depth of his struggle with what he was about to face, I will back up a bit to verse 34 first. In it He says, “ ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.’ ” And now in verse 36 He says, “ 'Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” Can you imagine, as much as we struggle with the decisions that we have to make that are hard for us, how Jesus must have felt when he had to decide to give up his very life for us? But He did decide to do just that! And when one of Jesus’ companions took out his sword to keep Jesus from being arrested, Jesus told him in Matthew 26:53-54, “ 'Do you think that I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?’ ”. Jesus had his marching orders from God. And Jesus was willing to follow those orders, even to the point of death.
And I have mine too. I’m called to walk through life living as God has asked all followers of Christ to live. The cost of living that life is nowhere near what the cost was to Jesus. But I have been asked to take up my cross and follow Jesus. And that means that, as Jesus says in John 16:33, “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart for I have overcome the world”. I want to have the attitude that Jesus had. He saw the greater purpose that God had in mind. Sometimes I struggle because I can’t see God’s purpose as clearly as Jesus could see the reason for his death on the cross. But I do know one thing. If I don’t go through the difficult times in my life, I will not grow in my faith. And I will not become the person that God intended me to be. You see, God does not really need me. I need Him. It is a priviledge to be part of the plan that He is carrying out in my life. And I want to hang in there through whatever hard times I have to go through to be able to see God’s plan accomplished!!!
Lord, help me to keep my eyes focused on heavenly things. As my dear friend pointed out, I long for heaven, but this is not it. So help me to live my life not for myself. I agree with Jesus when He said, “Not my will but yours be done”!
POSTED BY KRISTIN AT 7:09 PM