Giving God Our All

"Christ says 'Give me All. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don't want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked--the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours." Mere Christianity

Every Sunday for the children's message in the two churches I serve I invite one of the children to put something into "The Mystery Box". The box is wooden, about seven inches in length, three inches in depth and four inches in breadth. There is just one rule for putting things in the box: the thing cannot be alive or dead! The child given the Mystery Box one Sunday brings it to church the next Sunday with their item in it. They set the box on the communion table before the worship service and so I have a few minutes to look into the box and think of something to say about the object which might tie into a spiritual lesson.

This past Sunday a child put a rock in the Mystery Box. The rock was decorated at Vacation Bible School in order to look, somewhat, like a frog. On the bottom of the frog were written these words: Rely on God.

I asked the children what they thought it meant to rely on God. One said: "To have faith in him." Another said: "To trust him."

"Yes," I said. "And trusting him means putting your life in his hands just as I am now putting this rock in my hand and it is resting there."

The problem with us as human beings is that we are not as stationary as that rock. As someone once said, "The problem with a living sacrifice is that it has a tendency to wiggle off the altar."

How am I to "give my all" to God when every day I take a little bit of that "all" back again?

I told the children in church last Sunday that the secret is to do something in our relationship with God which we learned to do when crossing the street. As young children we were all taught to: "Stop, look and listen." before crossing the street. We need to do the same thing in our relationship with God.

We need to take time every day and just STOP. Be still and know that he is God, as the psalmist said. It is amazing what happens when you are really still and let your mind completely wind down. It gives room for God to come in. Then we need to also take time to LOOK to God's Word in Scripture. And after we have looked to his Word, take time to LISTEN to what he would have to say to us. Prayer can become a dialogue in which God speaks to us as well as our speaking to him. But to listen and really hear him, we have to be very quiet and still. We have to let go of all our concerns, and our rushing about. God's will is not usually accomplished in a flurry of activity, but rather in the stillness of one person waiting on him.

"Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper." 1 Kings 19:11-13

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