You want me to do what?

it has been about three weeks since i went cold turkey...

i was struggling with an issue...and praying about it...i felt that gnawing that comes...when you know the Lord is asking you to do some stuff you don't want to do...

i justified in my head and heart...why those things He was asking me to give up were not the culprits...that these things were not hurting me...were not hurting others...but yet i continued to feel Him asking me to walk away...to trust that He knew what He was doing...to trust that He knew what i needed...to trust that the outcome of my obedience would be good...

looking back...well now it makes me smile...how the Lord must have been tenderly looking down on me...waiting patiently...i know He knows me...i know He knows that i was going to fight it...
to somehow justify my side...to somehow "convince" the King of Kings...why these things He was asking me to give up...well...that He just wasn't seeing it clearly...

when i think about it...i wonder why i fight Him sometimes?

i mean...is Jesus' desire to be the Lord of my life some little fetish of His? why is it so important to Him? why should i want to give Him complete control of my life?

why do i fight Him??

what i know is that christianity is not like some drug that dulls you into obedience...it involves battle...and sometimes its excruciating to give up control...but that is why we must not feel despair if we are struggling...to struggle does not mean that we are incorrigible...it means that we are alive...

so why do i want Him to have control of my life?

besides the fact that He deserves it because of who He is...He knows that He is the only one in the universe who can control us without destroying us...

what i know for sure...is that no one will ever love me like Jesus...no one will ever know me better...and no one will ever care more for my wholeness than Him...

the last breath that Jesus breathed on the planet was for you and me...Jesus will meet you and me wherever we are and He will help us...He is not intimidated by past failures, broken promises or wounds...He will make sense of the brokenness...but He can only be the Lord of our lives...when we release control...

so as to my issue...and what i felt the Lord was asking me to do...the details are not important...what is important...is that in the three weeks that i was obedient...wonderful things have happened...

my issue...the one that for months i have been praying about...well...once i obeyed...it is slowly drifting out of my thoughts...something that for a while...i didn't think would ever happen...

now if i could just learn to be obedient to His promptings more quickly...imagine the outcome...

the great and joyful paradox is that while He totally transforms us...He makes us more ourselves than ever before...