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Bible
Study
November
2005
Surrendering
My Hopes and Dreams
By Ashley Kelly
Former Journeyman to Botswana, Southern Africa
Current NAMB missionary to Ontario, Canada
SETTING: BOTSWANA, AFRICA, SITTING IN CHURCH
I remember back in Africa when I was getting so bored
with hymns. I remember deciding that any worship song
is what you make of it. So, I vowed to start THINKING
about what I was singing and MAKE it a worship song that truly expressed my heart.
As God would have it, our church went on a kick of singing “I Surrender
All” after that.
The first week I couldn’t sing
because I was too busy examining my life to see if I
COULD sing that to the
Lord. As I sat there, I remember going through the files
of my mind… do I surrender my family? Yes, I left them
to come to Africa and I had to miss my grandfather's funeral
to stay over here. Do I surrender my money? Umm… mostly
since I decided that I would be a missionary in a foreign
country for life. Do I surrender my rights to a social
life? YES! Most definitely, at that point, I had really
no outlet for social gatherings nor weekend fun. My joy,
for the most part, came from ministering to the Batswana
people, receiving e-mails from my friends, and getting
together to pray once a week with a very special lady from
Zambia. Do I surrender my time? For the most part, my entire
life revolves around these youth and their needs.
The list went on… until I got to the prospect
of a husband. Could I take my life without a partner? I
could handle
not having any close friends if I could just have ONE person
who got to share everything with me. One person who could
walk this life of surrendering all with me. Could I surrender
the right to have a husband if it brought God more glory
to have me ministering without the time constraints of
a family? Could I… No, I wanted a husband!!
SETTING: IN MY LIVING ROOM HERE IN CANADA
Percy and I have been praying about this wedding for
as long as I can remember now. But, I remember just a
few weeks ago after 5 days of prayer and fasting
over this issue, going to the Lord to BEG him to soften Percy’s father's
heart so that we could get married this December as planned. But, as we fell
before the presence of the Lord, it became aware to both of us in our prayers
that it was obvious we were praying, “God bless our plans,” not “God,
let the story of our life be ‘Your will not my will’.” So,
we began to pray differently. Instead of praying with ourselves in the center,
we began to pray with God in the center. And, we prayed “Lord, our lives
are but a breath. Eternity is forever. If you can use the fact that we love
you so much that we would postpone the wedding for YOUR GLORY, then so be it.
We desire your will not ours. We desire the thing that would bring you glory,
not us.”
It is funny how you pray these prayers and you truly mean them while wrapped
up in the presence of His majesty and then you come back to real life and deep
inside you still sorta have this hope that God will see you are sincere and
give you what you want. Anyway, with all that as a background, Percy and I
have come to a conclusion: our lives are not our own. We surrendered our RIGHTS
to run our life by OUR DESIRES.
With all that said, I come back to the choice of the song. Do I surrender all?
Will I allow God to chip away the things I hold dear so that He truly is my
all and all? Do I want to be like Christ and share in the fellowship of his
sufferings? Do I want to truly be crucified to self so that I no longer live
but Christ lives within me? I desire to surrender all.
God is teaching me to surrender all… to
not hold things so closely. Will I submit or will I continue
to throw a
pity party and cry?! It is my choice, after all. Will you
join me in the struggle to surrender all to God – all
of your hope and dreams? He is a good God who rewards those
who earnestly seek him (Heb. 11:6). Walk with me on this
journey of trust and surrender. Taste and see that the
Lord is good …
Editor’s note: Despite the turmoil of their engagement,
Ashley and Percy were married according to their original
plans.
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