This is the second morning in a row that I have spontaneously knelt down and prayed. Not out of duty . . . but then again . . . in rigorous honesty, I have to acknowledge I was thinking about what a great day of deliverance I had yesterday and already trying to think of the way “I” made it happen . . . and that maybe part of what “I” did to make it happen was to kneel down and offer a formal prayer.
So . . . that’s how subtly motivations can be subverted and become less than for the “pure love of Christ.” To kneel down, purely out of love for God. To have no other motivation but love and awe and worship. To kneel down out of spontaneous reverence for Him and an overwhelming need to bend my knee and confess that I have no other desire except to receive the Holy Ghost and through Him be made as one with my Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. To confess that Jesus is my Christ, my Savior, my Messiah, my Holy One, of Eternal God. To offer my whole soul as an offering unto Jesus Christ.
Let me try that again. I'll be right back.
I'm back, and immediately the words of Omni 1:26 come into my mind:
26 And now, my beloved brethren, I would that ye should come unto Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel, and partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption. Yea, come unto him, and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him, and continue in fasting and praying, and endure to the end; and as the Lord liveth ye will be saved. (Omni 1:26)
This is the whole answer (for me at least) in one verse, in 63 words. This is the whole solution to how to have your heart changed. It is changed by Him once you have given your whole soul (body and heart and mind, life and will) unto Him. It takes giving Him permission to be in charge of your heart. It means letting Him flip the switch in your heart and set it in the “off” position towards your weaknesses. In my case that is toward overeating generally and eating refined carbs (junk food) specifically. It is also toward unwise spending. I do a fair share of that unless I allow Him to flip that switch.
Once the switch is flipped, though, I have no need to diet or to budget. I’m not living by the letter of the law (by the numbers). I’m living as one with the truth. I have surrendered to the truth about my body (that it can’t metabolize grains and sugars in a normal, average way) and the truth about my budget (that it can’t sustain me spending money in a mindless, addictive way–just because it feels good to spend money.)
So, it isn't an exchange between God and I. You know, I'll kneel and pray, then He'll deliver me. That's still too "arm's length." The answer is to love God--to love Him enough to trust my life to Him, to love Him enough to surrender my bitterness about certain things in my life to Him and trust instead that all things (including not being able to eat like a normal, average person) is part of His allotment of challenges to me in this life. It is to stop throwing myself against the reality that I don't want to live with and to embrace the rest of my life with grace and joy.
©2010 Colleen C. Harrison
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