Often when I take God seriously at His Word I realise two things. One the sheer impossibility of living to His requirements. Two how that acknowledgement leaves me at a place of desperate need for Him to live up to His demands in me. This total surrender to God is the best thing I can do for at that stage He turns up and expresses things through me that leaves me dumbfounded in gratitude.
The challenge – and what remains the hardest challenge of all – is to get to and stay in that state of desperate need for God. What makes this so challenging is my self-centred predisposition. With the best will in the world I often find myself so self absorbed and defensive or so smug and self satisfied that I forget that perpetual need. Sometimes it is at the point of success that the seeds of my downfall are realised as I see how well I have done and how brilliant I was to have achieved so much. And at that point the fruit of success begins to get rotten.
What is worse is that I am often aware of the skills, talents and abilities that I’ve been blessed with. What I don’t know is how God’s wisdom can get me to realise more of what He has deposited in me and how to make the most of what He has given. So the knowledge without wisdom gets me all tripped up.
Herein though is the beauty and brilliance of John 15 where Jesus plainly states without Him we can do nothing. For me to be productive with fruit that will last, once more my complete dependence must be in Him. Exercising that word has paid off big time for me in good times and bad. It helps me view an equanimity of contentment in God where the bad is still a step for being thankful to God and the good is a reflection of what is already. This equanimity also allows me to engage in situations only too aware that He will be glorified as long as He is complete control of the operation and I take my instruction from Him.
I also recognise which is borne out in my working life that there must be a desire to progress in the right way. That total surrender is not something coerced or done involuntarily or reluctantly or it is an unacceptable sacrifice. The plea of the wise man throughout Proverbs was that we must desire wisdom more than riches. The desire is key – without that desire we miss out.
So in terms of experiencing victory in the everyday walk with Jesus, where the tricky things to negotiated are handled appropriately and the high points are acknowledged appropriately a key to victory is total surrender so that He in me can be seen.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
dmcd
Life With CD 