Surrender

You may have noticed the infrequency of blog posts these last few months. Be assured that it is not because of a flagging interest in blogging or a lack of anything interesting happening in our sometimes silly, almost always crazy, love-filled lives.

Instead, we've just been thinking. Or more accurately, we've been listening. You see, God is doing something amazing in our hearts and we've been busy... busy wrestling, contemplating, pondering, praying, discussing, crying, and surrendering.

Here is the dilemma. This culture we live in consistently screams at us that the desires of our heart should be a picture-perfect family, a nice home, financial security, health & beauty, a fat 401k, and above all: comfort. The problem is that we just can't seem to find anywhere in the Bible where we are instructed to live comfortable lives. Instead, we are given this clear, life-changing command:

"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world yet forfeit his soul?" Mark 8:34-36

It has become increasingly apparent to us that we cannot claim to follow Christ without taking up the cross. Kay Warren wrote, "Your cross is not literal; it is instead an attitude of radical obedience to God in which you willingly accept ANY consequence for Jesus' sake."

And so we had to ask ourselves some questions: Were we living our lives RADICALLY OBEDIENT to our Lord? Were we willing to accept ANY consequence in our passionate pursuit of Him? Honestly, we were ashamed of our answer. We claimed to be Christ-followers while quietly harboring the selfish desire to protect our own comfort above all else. In essence, we attempted to "save our own life" by spending the majority of our resources on things that would make our lives easier, by dictating to God the ways we would serve Him instead of allowing Him to call us to ANYTHING, by planning our lives according to the standards of the American Dream instead of the standards of the Kingdom of Heaven.

And so, God asked us to surrender that desire to "save our own life".

Lest you be misled into thinking we are some sort of uber-Holy, super-Christians, let me refer you back to the beginning of this post when it says we were busy wrestling, contemplating, pondering, praying, discussing and crying. God had to work on us. Thankfully, our God is in the business of changing hearts. He has been whispering, tugging, and wooing us like only He can. With His help, we are surrendering...

Our dreams for our family and our expectations of what our life should look like;

Our preoccupation with what is comfortable and easy;

The blinders we have worn to shield us from any one's needs but our own.

And friends, we cannot describe to you the amazing peace that has rested on our hearts once we did. And joy. And anticipation. We are waiting on the edge of our seats to see where God will lead us. In the meantime, we choose to remember...

That His plans are always better. Jeremiah 29:11

That He is trustworthy and always faithful. Psalm 36:5

That this life is but a blink and we were meant for eternity. 2 Corinthians 5:1