With Everything

Seth and I are sitting in the living room. Hillsong's With Everything is playing on our speaker system. I can't help but wonder. I feel as though sometimes I am so selfish and self-addicted. So many times all I think about is Josh. My heart can be so prideful. Jesus said "any of you who does not give up everything he has, cannot be My disciple." Luke 14. If these are the words of King of the Universe, the Living God, the One created you and the computer screen you are staring at and the keys that i am typing... then why do I desire myself and my dreams so much more than Him? To love Jesus with everything... it is all or nothing.

A few weeks ago I was sitting on my bed upsatirs in the ministry house. I had been really homesick. I didn't want to stay here. I had no confidence in myself. I felt like my life was welling up to nothing because I was so focused on myself. And then I read that verse from Luke 14. It completely tore me apart. I asked myself if I really could continue living for myself while trying to live for Christ. I couldn't do it. It is an aweful feeling knowing that you are intentionally ignoring the Creator or the Universe, yet claiming you love Him. Over the last 4 or 5 months, God has been ripping my selfishness apart. In very painful ways, he has showed me that to think I can be His disciple and at the same time live a self gratifying life is absoulte foolishness. So a few weeks ago, I sat on my bed, staring at the ceiling, contemplating whether I wanted to stop following God because he requirements are so demanding, or, ask Him to change my heart so I would live fully devoted to Him with my will being His will. I was thinking about moving to Colorado on the spot, or spending a the rest of this year hitchhiking around America. I would have done it too.

C.S Lewis said that God is the "hound of heaven". I have been running from Him for so long, half heartly following Him. God chased me down, tackeled me, and told me that I needed to choose. So I chose.

I can't resist His irresistable grace. Jesus chose me. How could I want anything else. How could I think Colorado would satisfy the longings of my heart. It can't.

So I am sitting here, just thinking about my 19 years of life, and how God has so clearly been pursuing me. From the time I walked on the Great Wall of China when I was three, to the basketball court in the back of Asbury Grove in the summer of 2006, to right now.

I may never go to Colorado again. And is okay. Because Jesus is the prize. And he is so worth everything that I am.

"My whole life I place in your hands,
God of mercy, humbled I bow down,
in Your Presence at Your Throne."

-Came to My Rescue by Hillsong


-JN, one of the redeemmed