There’s a song that I’ve attached below about the gift of life. Not the initial gift of creation, but the second gift of return. There’s also a programming language I should be learning right now, but some things are more important.

Like giving it all up. Giving all of it up. I wish I could explain to you how real God is to me. I think that when you’re by yourself and the absurd aspects of this life begin to fade, He shows up, comes inside, take His rightful place. At least for me. The way He made me in particular, as in introvert, I feel more alive on the balcony with Him than at any other time. Take the party, popularity, success, and money and give me Jesus. Maybe He manifests Himself to extroverts in the same way? We’ll understand each other better in Paradise, I’m sure. Regardless of my inability to see you completely, know that I enjoy you and wouldn’t dare wish for a world without your presence.

Anyway, life is a lot like grasping at straws. Not that it should be! No, no, no. But imagine your dreams and how with each dream fulfilled another surfaces, making ultimate “attainment” impossible. Maybe we’re dreaming for the wrong things? Or maybe it’s really so simple as we’re just giving them the wrong weight.

Consider Job. He was a (true story) man of God (as in, a righteous man, one who did his best to obey God) who, many years ago, lost everything. I’m talking everything. He lost his family, his wealth, his reputation, his health. We typically use his life to highlight the fact that God can give, and God can take away. And that’s true. Let’s also see this: after losing “everything,” it was still not the end of Job’s world. Even the death of his family wasn’t the end of Job’s world.

Are we not to love our families? Of course we are. But more than we love God? No.

Dreaming dreams and choosing who to love and build our lives around is natural, but we ought to qualify! I mean it, not because people and dreams are less important, but because God’s opinion is more important than we act. There’s a verse in the Bible that says not to say what you’ll do next year, but to say, “if God wills, I’ll….next year.” I’ve probably quoted this before. Say that every time? Yeah, every time. Because it is better if God takes my life and lets it be used for His purposes than for me to get what I want. He’s really what I want, anyway.

An aside in relation to romance: Be careful. Don’t worship romance. I don’t want a man to worship me, and I intend to worship no man. Ladies, take with a grain of salt the phrases, “I want to respect you like a woman ought to be respected,” “I will treat you the way you deserve to be treated,” and references to your beauty during any initial contact. Especially because: well, those things are great, but show me? Yes, show me. Sweet phrases are forms of seduction. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Attractiveness is important. And it fades. It as a building block is quite ridiculous, and he has told dozens of women before you the same thing. Gentleman: expect more from women, and slow down. Don’t date the girls who are cruel, and you will have less of a reason to complain of it. For that matter, same goes for ladies. Because this is nonessential! (oh, I didn’t! but I did). Romance is nonessential. God knows more than any of you that I desire a husband and family, but God forbid I ever want it more than I want Him, or so desperately that I give it godlike status. Come on, folks. Love your husband and family when you have them, but focus on the rest of life until then (and even during). Life is not a race to marriage and a white picket fence.

I hope that doesn’t sound like I think you should avoid it. Not at all. I’ve been blessed to see many couples who put God at the center and whose romances are way better than the novels. But that’s my whole point. Desire one of those, or none at all. Because it is certain that God has more for all of us than loving only one person as if they were a god.

So give God that. Give God your chances at romance. Let Him give back or withhold. Trust that He knows what’s best, because He actually does. Give Him your career, your talent. Give Him your kids. Give Him your friends, your money, your home. Be as ready as you can to lose it all, because it’s all a gift, and our joys and our sorrows are in His perfect time. Find sufficiency in Him, not in your beauty, in the people who do or don’t love you, in your status. Only one thing will always remain! Only Him. All of your eggs are safe in that basket. None of them are safe in the others.

If you are brave enough to do that, the sweetest kind of freedom awaits. You have no idea.

 

 

Take my life and let it be, Consecrated, Lord, to Thee.

Take my moments and my days, Let them flow in endless praise.

Take my hands and let them move At the impulse of Thy love.

Take my feet and let them be Swift and beautiful for Thee.

Take my voice and let me sing, Always, only for my King.

Take my lips and let them be Filled with messages from Thee.

Take my silver and my gold, Not a mite would I withhold.

Take my intellect and use Every pow’r as Thou shalt choose.

Take my will and make it Thine, It shall be no longer mine.

Take my heart, it is Thine own, It shall be Thy royal throne.

Take my love, my Lord, I pour At Thy feet its treasure store.

Take myself and I will be Ever, only, all for Thee.

-Frances Havergal