Given

     "He was given over to his lustful passions and worldly pleasures." "If he had given over his life then it would have been saved." "He gave up His life and all authority in heaven and earth has been given over to Him." "I have already given him over to Satan so that the Lord may discipline him through fire." "He is given over to your hand, but do not harm his body, or take his life." These are just a few ways we can use the two words "given over", and yet in biblical terms tends to imply a level of submission and sacrifice. In the book I'm reading titled: Right Relationships - Tom Marshall; he dedicates the book to I'd assume his wife "who gave me 41 years of her life." This caught my eye and I thought to myself "my, I want someone to give me their life like that!" Of course in the context of the phrase I thought of a wife, but the next thought that came reminded me that I have been given a life. In fact, I haven't just been given 'a life' but THE life, and life everlasting at that by the one and only Son of God.  Jesus Christ has given me his life, and in turn, I am lead to give my life back to him and to be given over to his truth and his sacrifice. 

    The fulfillment of being given over to Jesus is as Paul might say "of far surpassing value than anything else in this world."  Yet to be given over to something also requires a submission rooted in trust. Recently I've been rediscovering the definition of the word "trust." I've been discovering how God leads in trust by placing the responsibility to the subjects who have been brought into His kingdom, and how even though He knows most of His subjects will more than likely not live up to the potential of each situation, He is heavily invested in allowing His subjects to grow to become the person that would not make the same mistakes over and over. In my own life I've been conditioned to where I know I don't allow my leaders, or really even myself, to make mistakes for the purpose of growing in character. This is because I had decided that no leader was worthy of my trust, nor could I ever trust myself.

    To say that this has created dissension within me would sort of capture how much pain this has caused me over the last couple of weeks. One of the key principles of trust is being able to fulfill command whilst also not breaching boundaries. Fulfilling command is the easy part for me, but because of the mindset that boundaries are needless and made with a faulty bias that I carried, I test boundaries, running over them with a recklessness that may not have any purpose at all especially in the face of wisdom. I have run over boundaries and rather than respect them in the interest of earning trust I have blatantly said "you're not worth my trust and neither I am worth yours, therefore I will not follow your rules." This weekend I have been filled with shame and grief over this mindset and maybe have just begun realizing the gravity of the hurt I have caused both my friend and in my leadership team.

    Yet, I have been given grace and an opportunity to step up my game. I have been given over to growth in Jesus and the flawlessness of His character, and the integrity of His word. This is my prayer and my meditation. That I would be given over to Him and that I would be dead and He alone who lives through me.

Urgency

    In my personal life, I've grown up in, adapted to, and functioned within a culture that's centered around urgency. Getting hired to do sales was one of the best ways to learn urgency because if I wasn't on time I wouldn't get the sale, and if I wasn't early I would be too late. Yet, this has caused quite a bit of tension in my life especially in relationship with God and with others, because it has caused me to think of the next best step, and instead of waiting on it, taking it out of step which causes me to be out of sync and out of time, and instead of being ruled by God's timing I am instead ruled by the timing of the market or the timing I think is best.

    I used to joke that life with God is more about unlearning things than it is about learning new things. While I don't really believe that this is the case anymore, I think it's a funny thing to point out in this context. I've got to unlearn urgency, and I'm really writing this blog post because I want to discuss with myself how I might do that. 

    So let's say with our friend, I have a certain conviction that I'm supposed to work with them in ministry, or be in a relationship with them, or do something in the future that is not yet the reality. For whatever reason I feel I often am made aware of these things far before the other person is, and it is a huge tension to let it roll in the timing that God desires to roll it out in. My problem is that as soon as I've realized that it is a thing that God wants to do I figure it's on His heart to do the thing right now, and so I'll take appropriate steps to make the vision a reality. The problem is is that if He had a vision with a time stamp on it I wouldn't have heard the time stamp because I didn't ask or I didn't bother to look.

    To be honest this is something that I've been learning for the past few months. My sense of urgency and restlessness to do a thing or get a matter over with so I can move on to the next thing rarely honors the timing God has in mind, and only speaks to how insensitive I can be to timing. What He's trying to teach me is rest, and staying in patience. Even this matter I'd love to take with the urgency mindset and say "OKAY GOD I'VE LEARNED PATIENCE NOW WHAT." But that would be missing the point, and would again speak to the fact that I haven't actually learned anything. 

    So what must I do to learn? To take these thoughts and actions, and desires and submit them to the desires and timing of the Lord is a good start. It always starts with submission. The second thing would echo the command to "not worry about anything. Instead, seek the kingdom and its righteousness first." That's not to say there isn't a time and a place for urgency, but the thing that I'm learning is not urgency, the thing that I'm learning is the time and the place. To be on this land in France, to be in the time and the age that God decided He wanted me to be in. I'm learning how to rest. Today has not been restful, but even still I must learn how to rest in my emotions.