Everything You Could Ever Want

Everything You Could Ever Want 

     I was talking with a group of girlfriends about how shallow it was to enjoy physical qualities in your husband. One girl thought me rather out of place, because I thought that it was ok to want a husband that was attractive to you. I was making a point based off of the verse John 15:7:"If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” As easy as it was for me to make my point with this verse, that is not what I want to talk about today. Later on I was thinking about my views on the subject, and God pointed something out to me. If I am truly walking with God, then what are the desires of my heart going to be? It says here “Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4. If God abides in me and I am delighting myself in Him, the only wish that I should have would be to serve him. (This is in light of the fact that I by some amazing power have been able to put my flesh to death.) 
                                                                             God has been knocking on the doors of my heart and asking me what I really want out of life. How do I want to serve and glorify him? Even more important, how much of my life am I willing to give over to him? What if that tall, dark, and handsome man with plenty of muscle to spare never comes along, will I still serve God with all that is within me? 

       Through the course of our lives we have a way of storing up things that are important to us and never letting them go. For girls, it is the love of a man. For boys, it is showing whose boss. We will go through anything to get a hold of these items and never let go. It is like walking along a beach collecting pebbles. We think that these pebbles are the most valuable thing in the world, and we are the ones that found them: they are ours and no one can take them away. Then one day a man comes walking along our beach and notices that we have something in our hand; he bends down so that he is at our eye level, and softly asks us “What is in your hand?” At first we do not want to answer him but somewhere deep down inside of us we feel that we should. The answer forces its way across our lips in half of a whisper:       
      “Pebbles Sir. I found them on the beach and they are mine."    “What value could a hand full of pebbles be to such a young little person?” the man asks with a coaxing tone.
      “ None whatsoever to you, sir, but they are of the utmost value to me, sir.” Our little voice is becoming defensive. We do not like this man asking questions.
      “Somehow, my little friend, I have a feeling that these little stones are going to cause more harm then they are worth. Look at the space they already take up; there is no room in your little hand for anything else. What if some one wanted to give you something of greater value? How would you hold onto your rocks and receive the gift at the same time?” Pulling our hand away, we answer the man with our civility dying.
     “My dear Sir, I am not sure I can see your point; you may not be able to see the value that these rocks, as you called them, possess for me. As far as the gift is concerned, I do not want it; no gift that you or any one else would give could ever amount to the importance of my pebbles.”  
      “I would not be so sure of that, my dear fellow, because you see you have not seen what is in my hand that I am ready to give to you.” The man also pulls his hand away and for just a moment we are extremely curious and our curiosity pops out of our mouth before we have time to think better of it.
     “ What might you have in your hand then, dear sir, that I might want? 
      “ Oh no, my dear friend, not so fast. You see I can not give you what is in my hand till you open yours and let me take out each and every one of your pebbles.” 
       “Every last pebble? NO! You can’t, I will not let you! They are mine and you are not going to get them. I have worked hard to find them and clean them up till their smooth coat is brilliantly arrayed.” For fear of this man and what he might do we turn our whole body away so that we have to look over our shoulder to see the man. The man stands up and puts his hand in the pocket of his coat. 
      “ It is your loss. You see, I have more of the gift that is in my hand than I know what to do with. I wanted to simply give it way to people that I know could use it more then I.” The sad inflection that accompanied these words was so powerful that somehow we found ourselves asking another question without thinking. 
       “ If you do not mind me asking Sir, what is your gift?”  We felt so very badly for the man that our body turned its self a little toward the man. 
      “ My dear fellow, if I could answer you, I would. The only thing that I can tell you is that you will never want for anything ever again. All of your deepest wishes will come true, and you will have a friends that will never leave you because of them.” The man’s face beams with hope and excitement. The power of whatever it is that he holds must be great. Our body had worked its way all the way back around so that we are fully facing the man but our hand is hiding behind our back. 
       “ I am just not sure; you speak of such great things, but how am I to know that they are true?” 
      “ Faith.”  With that one word I held out my hand. The power to open it left me, though, so the man gently pried it open. I know that by no means could he have taken more care to open my hand but even with all the care in the world it still hurt. My treasures were now on display for all the world to see. With two fingers the man picked up one pebble at a time and cast it into the sea never to be found again. Every time he took one of those precious stones out of my hand I felt like I had just lost part of my life. Finally the very last pebble rest on my hand. I wanted to curl my tiny fingers around that last possession of mine but the man grabbed it before I was able to. My pain was almost unbearable; how could anything be worth this much pain? How could anyone in their right mind cause this much pain? My thoughts were nowhere near civil. All the evil things that I could possible think of a person were running around in my mind. My anger burned within me for what seemed like an eternity, but once I saw the man open his other hand my fury vanished. I almost had to close my eyes because the beauty of the gift was so overwhelming. He was right, the gift that he gave me was so much better than I could have ever imagined it was worth all the pain that it cost me; in fact, all the worries and struggles I had over my pebbles was gone now. My mind thought of nothing else but the gift that was bestowed on me. Not only did the man give me back one priceless gem for each of my pebbles, but he filled my other hand with these sparkling stones. Everything that the man had said came true. Even the part about a friend that would never leave, because the man that gave me this gift is also my friend: never, I am happy to say, to be removed. 
        This is not just a story that sounds good; it is our story. God has gifts for you that are beyond worth, but in our selfish being we do not accept these gifts, because we think that what we have now is just fine. We are never content until God says it is time to change, but when God comes in with his changes, we do not want them, and all of a sudden we are content again.  Jim Elliot once said “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he can not lose.” Some of you might be asking your self what this looks like. For every one of you this will look different, but for me, God has asked me to lay every thing down: whether that be my free time, the music I listen to, the movies I watch, or the hope of getting married. I am by no means an authority on this matter. I have only just started this project myself, and I will tell you now that it is hard. Satan will fight you every step of the way because he knows how powerful you will be with the spirit of God dwelling in every part of your life. 


Project: Go through all the things that I value in my life and ask God to take control of them. Please let me know if you decide to do this project too; I would like to lift you up in prayer before God, and if you want account ability I can do that too.


Follow Up: I really do not have any follow up for my last blog, because there was not really project, but I can tell you this: I have grown so much in the past week in my walk with the Lord that I am overwhelmed by his grace.