love & sacrifice.

for those finding it difficult to die to certain desires and yearnings or lay down and deny bad habits and strongholds, i've heard on numerous occasions that we ought to pray to God that He simply take them away from us. i acknowledge that this advice is dished out with the best intentions and on the surface, it sounds wise and like something i might encourage for others. i confess i've even prayed this prayer recently, for God to take away the longings in my heart and if He doesn't, i'll take it as a sign that it's from Him and therefore it's good, meaning it's a keeper. what in the world? i missed the point entirely. i'm finding that i'm always so quick to give up all the bad things- my heavy burdens, my past failures, the junk inside my head, my faults, my fears and worries, etc. on the flip side, it's a struggle to sacrifice and loosen my grip on all the good & fun things- marriage, future, money, security, time. the Lord has been convicting me to lay down the best parts of me, the things i treasure, the first fruits. and the delightfully strange thing is, i want to. i want my sacrifice and worship to cost something, especially when it's to the Lord. and if that's the case, then it should be expected to cause some degree of pain and discomfort. i'm supposing the world would call this borderline masochistic or foolish, but that doesn't really concern me. each time i choose to gaze at Him instead of myself and my "needs", i feel His immense pleasure and delight over me. plus, i have enough promises from His word and history with God to know that He won't ask me to lay down the deepest desires of my heart so that i would be left barren to suffer in vain. i know i'm trading up.
for the joy set before us...
and again, how true it is that all roads lead to the cross.

Trading anything for more of God really is the greatest deal ever offered to mankind. What could I possibly have that would equal His value? - Bill Johnson

If the yearnings went away, what would we have to offer up to the Lord? Aren't they given to us to offer? It is the control of passion, not its eradication, that is needed. How would we learn to submit to the authority of Christ if we had nothing to submit?

It is easy to make a mistake here. "If God gave it to me," we say, "it's mine. I can do what I want with it." No. The truth is that it is ours to thank Him for and ours to offer back to Him, ours to relinquish, ours to lose, ours to let go of- if we want to find our true selves, if we want real Life, if our hearts are set on glory. - Passion and Purity, Elizabeth Elliot.