Wednesday, August 31, 2011

surrendering to the author of our lives...

from time to time...i suppose each of us stops to think about the direction our life is taking...you never could have imagined ten...fifteen...or even five years ago where you are today...living where you are...doing the job you're now doing...engaged in relationships with specific people...the losses...achievements...sorrows...and joys...

had we been the authors of our lives...we certainly would like to rewrite some parts...perhaps edit out a chapter or two...and condense or expand others...but we don't hold the power of the red pen...that role rests alone with the sovereign author of life...our Lord Jesus...that role is what the psalmist surrenders...in part...when he wrote "my times are in Your hands..." (psalm 31:15)

i was reminded of this recently when finishing a book by corrie ten boom...a longtime hero of mine...the way corrie interwove her life and faith sets her apart...but it's an interesting fact that corrie lived 52 relatively uneventful...obscure years before God placed her in the center arena...in fact...corrie...along with her also-single sister...still lived in their childhood home with their father and quietly ran a watch repair shop until the outbreak of world war II...(you can read all about it in the classic "the hiding place".) who would have figured the course God intended for their family...including corrie out of holland and sending her crisscross around the world for the next 35 years? certainly not corrie...and yet...as our author...God writes our life's chapters and determines our direction...

i can't imagine that corrie...at age 52...would have believed it if she could have seen what God had planned for the rest of her life...but that's why surrendering to the author of our lives is always the most exciting and safest story...

kind of makes you wonder...if we were able to look ten...fifteen...or even five years into the future...could we imagine how the Lord will choose to use us?

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