Friday, April 10, 2009

Jelly blogs...an Easter thought

John 12:23-24
23Jesus replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

Happy Easter! I hope and pray that God is speaking to everyone the way He is speaking to me this week! It is such a blessing to hear His voice!
This week God has truly shown me that it is a blessing to die to myself. I am rejoicing that He has picked this week for me to die to certain things because it the same week over 2,000 years ago that God proved He was willing to make that sacrifice for me. Jesus died that I might be whole. But, he didn't stop there He rose from the grave to show me that dying to self isn't the end. It is the beginning!!! I believe He brought everything to a boiling point in my life this week so as I walked thru dying I would easily remember He walked thru it too. It has been a reminder to me that after death comes the RESSURECTION. What is the resurrection? It is LIFE!
God has been asking my husband and me to obey him in a very hard area for a long time. I have fought and even tried to excuse my lack of obedience by slathering it things that sound righteous. I found verses to back up why I was disobeying. I used every term that sounded righteous. But, really I fighting God's will and trying in my feeble human way to control the outcome of my life. I had it planned in my head. I knew what it was supposed to look like!!
Finally (without much help from me sadly) God brought His will to fruition. The hard decision was made. It hurt. It was hard. It required dying to self. But then, strangely enough, peace came flooding in. Even through my tears there was peace. That peace that surpasses ALL understanding. And not only had that, but something within me broken. I was able to see so clearly where I had been going wrong in certain areas of my life. I could see how desperately I was trying to control things. How fear motivated so many of my decisions. Time and time again God has tried to show me that no matter how I try to control something I can't change the outcome! All I do is carry a burden that is not mine to carry. I cannot make people truly happy. I cannot make people want the Lord! That is between them and God. All I can do is what He calls me to do and let Him have his way. His way in me AND in others.
I realize that any type of rebellion equals chains. Even when the rebellion is clothed in righteous phrases! But when we finally surrender the things we hold onto so tightly, whether it is our dreams, desires, relationships, "me time", whatever it may be, the chains fall and then we really experience that HIS yoke is easy and His burden is light!
We have been singing a song that says "Trading all that I have, for all that is better." He truly is better. Just His peace alone is worth a thousand dreams!
Though it can painful to trust other people and myself into His arms, I know what He has for us all is better than what we can offer ourselves.

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