I run from You. I run from being disciplined. Disciplined in my eating. Disciplined in my spending, my habits, my thinking, my choices. It is all I ever want, but it is excruciating to achieve.
I turn from You. I was happy in You for the longest time. I loved You as a child (I still do), delirious in a joy that filled my heart daily. I thought I knew You. But the more I learned of Your greatness and holiness, Your omniscience, Your calling… there are things I do not understand and have not yet reconciled with who You are. I am bitter. Anxious. My shoulder is turned, but like a little girl who misses her Daddy, I am ever glancing back over it – looking for You.
Because I love You. So help me, I do. I have thought of leaving. Of being “free.” But what freedom is there apart from Christ? In the words of Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life (John 6:68).” And if I wasn’t Your slave, I would be slave to the world: a far more brutal and unforgiving master.
But really, I do not want to leave. I want what You have to offer: character, discipline, goodness, love. I just don’t want to take the journey to get there. With all I know, and all the philosophies and wisdom swimming in my brain, I am still a child. A stubborn child who does not want to give up her games, her candy, her freedom. (But what is freedom apart from Christ?)
God help me, to open my tightly clenched fists and give You my chains, the chains that I love. Pry open my hands as I cry, and show me what is better: a life of purpose and sacrifice. A life of discipline and simplicity, where I do not live to satisfy my gut and my heart.
Make me brave enough to face intense sorrow in order to acquire everlasting joy.
Lord Jesus, my one prayer that I utter when I am refusing to pray is this:
Never let me go.
There are days when I want out, when I lose sleep because I don’t know how to rest in You. Because the truth is and will always be: I am completely and utterly lost without You. I am an animal and a horrid being without You. So when I am wandering – again – and am mad at You in my ever returning ignorance, I plead with You, my loving Savior…
Never let me go.
Musings of a Servant 