🌿BREATHE TRUTH🌿
Give me happiness, O Lord, for I give myself to you. —Psalm 86:4
🌿LIVE THE REAL TRUTH🌿
This afternoon. I drive 4 kids to 4 different sports venues. After dropping off the first child, we find ourselves approaching unexpected traffic. Despite the advanced planning, it becomes evident that the the final child will be late. I re-calculate the order so that the youngest is last to be dropped off. A minute or two later, I hear a quiet voice: “Mom, I’ll be last.”
It is my oldest son. He is willing to be late to his game so that his younger sister wouldn’t. He sacrifices himself for her. Big God moment in your child’s life.
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Small, simple giving.
Apart from Christ, few of us desire to go last, get the leftovers, give something away of significance. But in Christ, the last shall be first, little is made into more, and grace flows without end. By nature then, we are creatures of taking to gain. No one attempts to lose. We endeavor happiness of the heart and joy in the journey. Yet rarely is it in the taking that happiness reveals herself. The unveiling of joy is more often than not, found in the letting go of what we hold and longing to have what we want, to the will of God. Before Jesus, we traverse as takers. After Jesus, we grow to become givers.
Gifting ourselves to God is a work in progress process. To release back to Him where we hope to find happiness in. The relationships we desire to come home to. The realities we dream to come true. The risks we dare to come across.
God is not asking for unreal bigness, but for sufficient and consistent parcels of our lives. The truth is, happiness isn’t found in enormous pieces of daily living. Christmas Day, graduation day, birthday, wedding day, honeymoon day, birthing day…….do not occur every day. Happiness happens in simple-giving-to-God packages.
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Small, simple deaths.
Analogous to small, simple giving of ourselves to God. Small, simple deaths. This is how we give ourselves to God. We die to self. Death of our way, our will, our wandering. Give God the right of your way, the reach of your will, the road of your wandering. Somewhere along the journey, you were the one who said no to God instead of yes, and yes to self when you should have said no. But you’re not that person anymore.
No one gives to lose. Or loses to give. Except Jesus. He gives His life to lose it. He loses His life to give it away.
Jesus is our ultimate example of giving and dying to self. Think you can’t die to self? Beloved, Jesus dies an infinite number of deaths on the cross for you. He faces the worse abcd of harm possible: affliction, beating, crucifixion, death. Jesus dies for you, so you can die to your self. His resurrection power is at work to enable you to live out small deaths for His glory, your good, and eternity’s gathering. Note to self: I’ll be last.
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©️ 2019 Jordan Su