I’ve been picking away at this since Wednesday, June 7.
“Sorry” to you, the few and the proud, who read my blog consistently. You know when a person starts blogging about LEGO’s, he or she is really lacking revelation from the Lord. Guess that’s been the reality of it all of late.
Things pretty much came to a head Wednesday night. We had Round 2 with special guests Cliff and Christie Graham–international youth evangelists who always bring good teaching on faith to our church. They brought some very powerful material, but I could feel myself slipping in and out most of the evening. Then things started picking up. Cliff really got on a role late in his message and he started bringing it hard. It was pretty inspiring because he was talking about all the Lord can accomplish through those with faith.
But for some reason–and the reason could be as simple as I haven’t been getting enough sleep lately–words started passing through the wrong filter and I started buying the lies. I started believing that I’d never have the faith it will take to carry out God’s call. And all sorts of other garbage.
So when Cliff made his offer for the congregation to respond to the call to the life of faith, I just couldn’t do it. I had zero confidence I could actually live up to the commitment and truly sell out for the Lord. I couldn’t place my complete trust in him. I couldn’t sell all for the pearl. Even when all but three seats in the place cleared out and I felt stupid for being one of the few to say I wasn’t going all in for God, I couldn’t go up.
Now I’m left trying to figure out what it all means. I certainly don’t feel like crap like I did Wednesday night and Thursday morning. Sherry did her par-for-the-course fabulous job of supporting me in my struggle and spoke truth to the situation–whether I could hear it or not. On the way back from church her words were more or less like water on a duck’s back. She could say all she wanted, but it didn’t really affect me. But it’s obvious those words of truth–those very God-breathed scriptures she prayed and spoke over me–did their job given time. His word doesn’t return to Him void. God’s word works. That’s the nature of it.
But even though I “feel better,” there was a reason I couldn’t summon the courage to respond on Wednesday and I don’t feel like it’s just gone away. I think there’s something I need to deal with. And I don’t feel I can move on until it is taken care of–or at least addressed.
When Sher was praying for me during the car ride home on Wednesday, a thought came to mind and I feel it was from the Lord. He suggested I have commitment issues; I don’t like making hard committments mostly because I fear I’ll fail at them. So, it’s safer just to not make the commitment in the first place. That’s what I ran into on Wednesday and I see it creeping its evil head now and then elsewhere.
I don’t know what this means now. Maybe I’ll have to go through deliverance at some point for it. Or maybe I just need to talk to others more. All I know is that Jesus asks for a commitment. As Cliff pointed out, he wants all of us. Christ paid for all of us when he went to the cross; and the Father doesn’t take the sacrifice of sending His son lightly. If He bought something with His son’s blood, he wants it all.
Why is it so hard to commit fully to the maker of the universe?
