surrender all?

Have you ever stopped when you were singing along with a song on a CD you were listening to or in church and thought about the words you were just singing?

I was just listening to the song "Surrender" by Jeremy Camp when I did just that.


I was stopped by the line "I surrender to your throne." Ultimately that is my desire, but I started to wonder if that was something I alwasy meant when I sang that. Or was it just words to a song I was singing along to?

Lately, I have found myself pondering and reflecting more and more on what I sing when I am listening to music. Do I mean it? Or am I just singing it because it is part of the song? Basically, a heart check. Where is my heart in this moment?

Even though I may mean them in the moment, I know I may not always do a great job of living it out, but I do not think that is the biggest issue. The big deal is do I mean and desire what I am singing. Do I actually desire to be completely surrendered to God's throne? If I actually mean it and am seeking to live that way, then even though I may not do it perfectly all the time I can declare that to be my heart's desire. But, if I do not really desire to surrender completely to God's throne, do I really want to sing those words?

I wonder if I am the only one who thinks like this or if there are more that have had this thought process go through their heads at times.

instantaneous change or a process?

Well, I forgot to order decaf when I got a coffee a couple hours ago, which means I had caffeine way too late this evening and I have a feeling that I am going to be up late tonight. That means I have time to write about what I have been thinking about lately. I just hope that my fingers can keep up with my thoughts to get this written in a coherent fashion.

For the last few weeks, I have been thinking a lot about how we will hear something that challenges in our spiritual life and so we pray to God about it once - usually in some sort of a response to what we just heard. Then we get up and go on our way, only to find ourselves frustrated a few days, weeks, months down the road when we find ourselves still dealing with the same thing. "But I prayed about it back on . . ." is our usual response then - like praying about it once is all it takes to bring about change in our lives.

It is so easy to assume that any change that needs to happen in our lives can happen in one prayer and that God just does it all. I know I have done that many times. But, lately I am learning that it does not always, or even usually, work that way. More often then not, actually implementing what we were challenged to at the time takes far more time and effort then the prayer afterwards took. Most of the time change is not an instant thing; it is a process that we walk through, with victories and setbacks along the way.

Lately, I have been wondering if God has a method to it working that way. Well, I know He does, but I have been thinking more about it. I wonder if part of the reason most change in our lives is not instantaneous is because then we would have little need for relationship with God. We could just go to Him and ask for Him to change a certain part of us and that would be done. Then we would go on through life until the next thing and we would ask God again and the change would happen. And on and on the cycle would go.

Not really much of a way to build a relationship. But, if the change is a process, then we are in a position where we are needing to constantly turn to God for help because we need Him to be pushing us and providing us the strength to carry on when we cannot do it on our own strength. Change being process forces us to rely on God - forces us to build that relationship with Him.

I have heard many teachers and writers who I respect say things along the lines of "God is more interested in the relationship than in the end result." That is not to say that God does not care about us actually removing an area of sin from our lives or gaining victory over something. He does care about those things. But, it does mean that He puts a greater value on the relationship that grows from needing to return to Him daily for the strength to make those changes to find victory.

God desires relationship with us. When I stop and think about that - really think about it - it amazes me. Why would to Creator of the Universe care about me? Why would He desire to have a relationship with me? It seems absolutely absurd! Yet, He does. And sometimes that means the process of change in my life is slow and painful. But through that time my relationship grows deeper as I depend on Him for each new day.

The same is true for you. The Creator of the Universe cares about you! He desires a relationship with you! He wants to bring about change in your life, but He wants to build your relationship with Him through the process of that change.

being present in what's happening now

I wonder how many people are like me in that they easily get lost in what has happened or in what may happen. We get so busy with thinking about those things that we completely forget about what is happening right now. I wonder if when we forget to really pay attention to what is happening now we miss so much of life.

I read a quote the other day that really got me started thinking about this.

Live. And Live Well. BREATHE. Breathe in and breath deeply. Be PRESENT. Do not be past. Do not be future. Be Now. On a crystal clear, breezy 70 degree day, roll down the window and FEEL the wind against your skin. Feel the warmth of the sun. If you run, then allow those first few breaths on a coll Autumn day to FREEZE your lungs and do not be alarmed, be ALIVE. Get knee-deep in a novel and LOSE track of time. If you bike, pedal HARD ... and if you crash then crash well. Feel the SATISFACTION of a job well done - a paper well-written, a project thoroughly completed, a play well-performed. If you must wipe the snot from your 3-year old's nose, don't be disgusted if the Kleenex didn't catch it all ... because soon he'll be wiping his own. If you've recently experienced loss, then GRIEVE. And grieve well. At the table with family and friends, LAUGH. If you're eating and laughing at the same time, then might as well laugh until you puke. And if you eat, then SMELL. The aromas are not impediments to your day. Steak on the grill, coffee freshly ground, cookies in the oven. And TASTE. Taste every ounce of flavor. Taste every ounce of friendship. Taste very ounce of life. Because-it-is-most definitely-a-Gift.

Every example is about being here now - paying attention to what is going on in the moment. That is how God desires for us to live. He does not want us to get caught up in what happened or to be so caught up in what may come that we miss now.

Obviously, there are times when it is good to look back and see what we can learn from what we went through and how we handled it. And there are times when it is good to look to the future and where God may have us to go. But, we must be careful not to get caught up in either. There is too much that is happening now that we miss if we are focusing on the past or the future.

To close I will leave you with two questions that I was asking myself after I read this quote:
Am I present in what is happening now most of the time?
Am I more likely to get caught up in the past or the future?
Those questions challenged me to evaluate my own life. I hope they do the same for you.