Sunday Morning Leftovers: More of You

Spaghettipie regularly offers Sunday Morning Leftovers. These posts, usually done on Monday mornings, reiterate something from Sunday’s worship that stuck around for further meditation. Sometimes just one phrase the pastor says or one verse read can linger in your consciousness refusing to be neglected. You let it percolate until another, newer morsel of God’s truth demands attention. This is my bit for this week.

“It’s never a matter of getting more of the Spirit; it’s about giving more of ourselves to Him.”

I’ll never understand God, at least not this side of eternity. As hard as I try and as much as I study, He is and always will be a wonderous mystery to me. This week our pastor spoke about the Holy Spirit. He said this (what I quoted above) while talking about how the Holy Spirit dwells in believers. He lives in us, so we can’t get away from Him. But how much reign do we allow Him? Does He have access to all parts of our lives? Or do we keep Him on a leash, a tight schedule permitting Him interaction only on certain days of the week? Do we restrict Him to specific situations?

Throughout my life I’ve sought to garner more of God. I think if I do things this way, then He’ll bless me more. Or if I say the right prayers and participate in the right ministries, then life will turn out the way I plan. My ideals will be fulfilled when I live life the “right” way. Contrary to popular belief, experiencing God is not a formulaic experience. While I would love a precise, predictable cause and effect relationship, I won’t find it because human understandings are so vastly inferior to those of God. I can’t fully understand Him and so I can’t fully understand His ways. But I know He is good! He is always good. That is all I need to understand. The rest are just details through which I can learn a little more about myself and a little more about Him and His beautiful existence.

Receiving “more” of God is not a matter of finding the right buttons to gain access to Him. It’s a matter of surrender. When I sacrifice my ideals for His, I won’t earn more of Him, but I’ll allow myself to see more of Him. All of Him is already within me! He’s all around me begging to be noticed, waiting to be praised. When I give more of me to Him, I get myself out of the way enough to recognize His ever-presence, His power, His plans. I clear my vision to revel in His awesomeness. It may feel like I get more of Him, but really I just let go of more of me. It’s another spiritual paradox like the first shall be last and the last first. The weak shall be strong and the strong weak.

Have you heard Jeremy Camp‘s “Take My Life?” This song begs God to take it – my life, my soul, my will, my everything. This is not one of those happy little hymns that proclaim contented self denial and full acceptance of God’s superiority. No, this is a lament I shout through painful tears. It’s an intense cry for help, a confession of failure, a vulnerable admission of pride. I repeatedly take my life back into my own hands only to find I’m completely unqualified to run it. I fight for control only to discover that when I get it, I destroy everything. And then I blast this song. I work and work and strive and fight to do what needs to be done to get God’s blessing, to garner more of Him, but only when I let go of myself can I see Him, feel Him, know Him fully.

I wish I were better at giving Him my life instead of requiring Him to take it from me.

To hear “Take My Life”, click here. To read the lyrics (they are tough to understand if you’re unaccustomed to this style of music), click here. You can also watch Jeremy Camp perform this song at the 2006 (?) Dove Awards by hopping over to youtube here.