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June 21, 1999
O to be in the will of God.
I am learning more and more each day how important it is to be in His will. I'm also learning
how to appreciate it when He notifies us that we have gone astray and He redirects our paths.
One year, one month and 5 days ago, I moved from my hometown to northern California. I didn't
come here because I found a better job, I didn't come here because I was running away from home,
but I came here because I was being led away to learn some things about myself. The Lord gave me
a full agenda of things that I needed to work on, things that I was overlooking, things about which
I had become complacent. My life as a Christian was beginning to become ritualistic and familiar.
I wanted to know whether I was going to church every Sunday because I desired to be there or because
I was expected and had to be there. I wanted to know whether I volunteered here and there because I
was called to do so and because I was using the spiritual gifts that God has given me or merely because
I like to stay busy and because I didn't want to say no, when asked.
My Pastor, Dr. Karry Wesley, stated a familiar phrase just before I decided to move, "Don't get so busy
doing, that you neglect being." That phrase stuck with me and I pondered it over and over in my mind until
it became clear to me that I needed to make an effort to change my way of thinking and doing some things.
Other things that spoke to my heart as I made this decision were 1) a contemporary Christian song entitled
Deeper - "...and the wonder of it all, is that I'm living just to fall, more in love with You!" and 2) a book
by Chuck Swindoll entitled Intimacy with The Almighty, which highlighted the important principles of
Simplicity, Solitude, Silence, and Surrender. It became apparent to me that if I had continued down the path
that I was on, many of my efforts might have been in vain. I may have become so caught up in work and service
and tasks, without love, compassion, or focus. I feared that I was beginning to evaluate what I was doing and
saying - check, check, check - like I was really accomplishing something through my works. I have since
learned that unless my work is motivated and activated by love, it is in vain. It is like 'sounding brass or
a tinkling cymbal' (I Corinthians 13:1).
A few people have asked me whether I feel that I have accomplished what I set out to do when I came here. My
reply is that it was not something that could actually be measured or that I could say - yes, I have arrived.
It has been more like the beginning of a process, another season in strengthening my walk with God. There
were principles that had to be learned in order to take me to the predestined place where He desires to use
me next; that's how God orchestrates things for us. But it's very difficult to know where you're going if you
don't know where you are.
That was the first task, to evaluate myself and allow the Lord to show me that which was in need of
surrendering. As many of us know, the root of that need is in the flesh - that which wants what it wants,
when it wants it, and the way that it wants it. Among the many lessons to be learned was this, "one of the
best things a Christian can do with his/her temperament (personality) is to accept it as God's creation in
them, and then, with the Holy Spirit's help, become the kind of Spirit-controlled (person) God wants (them)
to be......walking in the Spirit. Our relationship with Him is the key......the fruit of the Spirit provides
at least one strength for every human weakness.......we need the filling of the Spirit for the strengthening
of our weaknesses. - from The Spirit-Controlled Temperament by Tim LaHaye.
That is the lesson that I'm learning. In all of its profundity, it is much easier said than done. The
bottom-line however, is that the more I love Him -- the more I WANT to surrender, the more it pleases me to
please Him, the more personal accountability I develop, the more I am convicted to follow His statutes. While
we are learning this lesson, do we follow through with no mistakes? No! But it is through our falling down
and getting up that we learn to depend on Him. That's the ONLY DIFFERENCE between the saints and the sinners
- "we fall down, (then) we get up" - Psalm 119:71. The Lord Jesus Christ in His grace, picks us up, cleanses
us in His blood, redeems us, and presents us faultless to the Father. Because He sacrificed so much for us
and because He constantly intercedes for us, our love for Him should grow stronger and stronger each day.
We love Him because He first loved us!!! I am most grateful for the loving relationship that I have and that
I am developing with Him. "I will not offer to the Lord, that which costs me nothing." - I Chronicles 21:24.
Let us continue to offer ourselves to the Lord, presenting our bodies as living sacrifices! His strength is
made perfect in our weaknesses, so let us be neither too fearful nor too proud to offer them to Him.
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