Curve balls

So much of life is unpredictable, so why do we try to plan and control "our" lives. My life seems to be full of curve balls, nothing like the curve ball that I received last summer when Brian died, but enough that it has me realizing again how little of life we actually can predict and control.

In Feb. of 2009 I wrote a blog on what the word Sacrifice meant to me as a follower of Christ. http://brandykimes.blogspot.com/2009/02/sacrifice.html


Tonight I was challenged again to mediate on what it meant to sacrifice something. In Genesis 22, we are given a great example of what it looks like to truly lay down anything and everything for the God of the Universe. It's not the greatest example, because Jesus dying on the cross is the ultimate representation of what a sacrifice truly is. However, the journey that Isaac endured and the statement he made to God and the world when he laid his only son on that alter, is a foreshadowing of the sacrifice God was willing to make for us.

So, why bring up sacrifice in a blog that started out about life's curve balls. At the core of what I am struggling with is my own flesh. I have come to realize the depth of my desire to control my own life. In fact, it isn't the stuff in my life or the relationships that need to be placed on the alter but instead it is me. I need to lay my selfish desires to control my own life at the foot of the cross and be willing to sacrifice myself to the Lord regardless of the outcome.

Let's look at the difference between the Genesis passage and the Gospel. Isaac was willing to go through with it but God provided a lamb at the last minute. He didn't know that there would be a lamb, which makes me wonder if there had not been would this speak less of the character and nature of God? And would the story still reveal the same message? Would it still communicate that we are suppose to live in a way that nothing takes a higher place in our hearts that God Himself? Yes, I believe it would. Isn't the Gospel message all about the character and nature of God... and didn't Jesus die. The sacrificing that takes place in both Isaac's life and Jesus' is a statement that declares that all of our lives must be submitted beneath the mercies of the Lord. It is a sacrifice stating that life here on earth means nothing compared to the glory of doing the will of His Father.

That's my prayer. As life seems to be going in so many different directions and I am realizing how little control I really have, I pray that I would sacrifice my selfish desire to do my own will, for the will of the Father.

"Lord, don't give up on me. Don't let me stay the same as I am today, instead help me to learn what it means to be more like you. It is my greatest desire to bring you glory and if that means laying down my life, I will. Please, take away these selfish desires to control so many areas of my life. I don't know what tomorrow will hold and I can't hold onto the things and people of this world."