Do you ever feel like you’re living an endless struggle between your selfish desires and your desire to live for Christ. Let’s just say I feel it daily.
It’s like an ongoing boxing match between two equally skilled fighters. I desperately want my husband to be safe at home with me. I want him to be there for the big news, the scary news, and just for the day to day. He’s my partner. He’s my companion. He’s my love. And yet, I want him to embrace this job, this opportunity he’s been given, and this great passion of his heart.
It’s almost as if there’s the Devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other (like those cartoons you see… you know the ones.) After that Devil does his fair share of speaking lies, thankfully the angel steps in to remind me that for what else is the point of this fleeting life but to live it with an eternal perspective? And is Clay not my partner in ministry, my companion in Kingdom work, my love that is made possible because Christ first loved us?
Clay wrote the following on the wrapping paper of a gift he gave me for our wedding – exactly seven months ago today:
My life’s partner in God’s work. I couldn’t have said it better. I believe God brought my husband and I together that we would be able to walk in His will and work for His Kingdom better together than apart. And for the rest of our lives, I will strive to put that work – God’s work – above my own wishes. I will strive to allow the eternal perspective to beat out that of my fleshly desires.
Not by my own power, but by His and His alone.
“Christ alone, Cornerstone, weak made strong in the Savior’s love. Through the storm, He is Lord. Lord of all.” – Hillsong, Cornerstone
No matter what “storm”may come in my life, in your life, in all of this life… we have a Savior who is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow who has calmed stormy seas, who has allowed mere human beings to walk on those very waters, a Savior who has conquered it all – even death.
And that Savior is not an “equally skilled fighter” causing the battle between Himself and Satan to go on forever; He is sovereign, almighty, stronger than any opposing force… He has already won the battle.
When we fight to keep His perspective as our own, and when we fight to allow His voice to be louder than any other, then well, the struggle doesn’t seem so real after all. When we seek God’s will above our own, His desires end up replacing our own. Our desires become His desires.
When we take God’s hand and make His will our own, we are able to then take the hand of others – not to grasp tightly to keep for ourselves, but to hold loosely as we offer up our lives in a “Kingdom perspective partnership.” Oh, that we would we walk – nay, run – toward Jesus as we live as vessels that would help bring restoration to the broken places of and light to the darkness of this world.
“He’s got the whole world in His hands.”
“I know who goes before me. I know who comes behind. The God of angel armies is always by my side. The one who reigns forever…” – Chris Tomlin, Whom Shall I Fear?
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” – Romans 8:35-37
