Until you have it all.

These are just some thoughts......... I hope they make sense.
I have been looking for a place to live in Denton for when I start ministry in the next month or so. And this has led me to feel the most anxious I have felt in a long time. Let me give you some background -- my whole life I have struggled with anxiety and fear until a few years ago, and I am convinced God healed me. Jesus confronted that sin and has brought a ton of victory to that area. But I still feel anxious from time to time. This is the first time I have felt anxiety the way I used to feel it. Overcoming, crippling. I have so many desires for what I want out of my life in Denton, and some of them are non-negotiable, but some are just desires........ and not all of them can be met. I have this long list of considerations and feel like nothing is perfect or good enough. I am putting my desires ahead of God's desire for my life, and putting my own wants in front of my needs, the needs that God knows and is faithfully providing for.

This morning I prayed three simple requests: that God would find a place where I could live with another believer, be close to campus, and something long term. Later today I was talking to God while driving (I do this a lot), and thinking about all the different things I want in a living situation. My mind was racing, and God just intervened. He said to me: "At some point, you just have to die to yourself." 

It was pretty clear. I didn't know what to say. He is so right...... at some point, I need to just lay down my desires at the foot of the cross and just die to myself.

In my last post I talked about how God is so relentless in His pursuit of us. This weekend at church we sang a worship song that spoke directly to this subject..... here are some of the lyrics:

You won't relent until You have it all
My heart is Yours

(listen to the song here)

As I sang these words I felt this deep joy that God had all of me, grateful that He doesn't relent until He has all of us. Today God revealed to me that He doesn't have all of me, because I am holding it back from Him!! Here I am, thinking that I have given every part of my life over in surrender to Christ when in reality I am clinging on to this idea of what I selfishly want my life to be. God gently reminded me of the day on the beach in Florida when I decided to come on staff with Campus Crusade. I didn't say "yes Jesus, you can have my life, but only if you make everything around me and all my circumstances comfortable and clean" ......no, I remember specifically crying out to God in overwhelming surrender of my life and saying "I will follow you, I will be obedient, I will do what you say regardless of the cost." 

I'm so grateful He revealed this to me today in the car. Who am I to think He wont perfectly provide for me, even if it is not "comfortable and clean." He wants me to die to myself, lay down my own ideas, and just follow Him. I have an opportunity to do that today, to follow Him regardless of the cost, and I don't want to miss it.