give my life away

My life has been relatively uninterrupted by people trying to steal my stuff. It just hasn't come up very much at all. And people haven't often asked to borrow or to take my things. I haven't had a lot of people demand that I give them something that is mine. For most of my life, I have been able to think that I am pretty selfless and generous. I've been taught to store up treasures in heaven, and I wanted that to be the way that I lived my life, so I have kept a pretty low profile and have tried to give as much away as possible.

God has given me the gift of material simplicity. I just don't need a lot to keep me going. I don't have an obsession with shopping, and I actually have a hard time spending money on things that I don't deem absolutely necessary. So it was hard for me to understand when the Lord began to press upon me the deep selfishness that lines my heart and my motivations. It didn't look true from the outside, and I certainly didn't want it to be true.

In the last few weeks, people have been asking for things that I have. They have been taking things that I have been able to convince myself that I own. They have been pushing and prodding without knowing that they have been doing so. With a life empty of people asking and taking, and I have been able to create a very self-focused and self-deceiving world. I was able to convince myself that I was selfless when really I just gave away everything I didn't want in order to strengthen the grip I had on the things that were most precious to me.

What are the things that are most precious to me? The things that I've convinced myself that I own? The things on which I have desperately tightened my grip? People. Community. Relationship. Status. Belonging. Intimacy.

I have become a manipulator. I have become a performer. I hoard these things and do all that I can to increase my grip of these things. The Lord showed me the performance that my life has become, and He said that He wanted only a quiet performance for Him. He saw that I had been striving so hard and was never at rest. And He said that He wanted me to come and find rest in Him and again be made whole.

He said, "What if the only reason that, by MY GRACE, I have given you this community and these people was so that you would give them away when I told you to in order to propel someone else into a future that they couldn't have without the foundation you laid out for them. What if you lost it all simply for that purpose? Would you trust me? Would you be willing? Would you lose everything for the sake of this one person--even if that person wasn't aware of it and wasn't grateful to you? What then?"

I said, "Lord, no, please....... But sanctify me. I don't want to be selfish. I don't want that to define me. I want to be selfless like Jesus--unto death--but I so desperately want these things that I feel are being stolen out of my grip..... But take it away if you must. Take everything away that I desire more than you. Take away all that I cherish and all in which I display my gifts in ways that are not completely honoring to you. Let others be more selfish than me, and help me not to fight for what is not mine. Nothing is mine. Only by your grace am I able to enjoy it. Help me to be grateful. Help me not to hate when those things are taken away. Help me not to throw my life and all that I've 'earned' into another person's life just to gain heavenly treasure and to, in a way, take it from that person. Give me both selflessness and LOVE! Lord, I have a hard time knowing that I might give my entire life away and make someone else great and never have that recognized by another person. I might lose everything I have worked for, or rather that you have given me in my work. I might lose the only home I've ever known in order to give it to another. And perhaps no one will notice that I left my glory behind. This is really hard for me. But God, help me to gain so that I can give it away. Help me to make great effort to make connections and to find success and glory so that I have authority to give it to another. This will be when I am truly storing up treasures in heaven. I do want a heavenly reward. But, Father, help me to live in the hope of heaven and the joy of obedience. You are God. Help me to treasure you."

God showed me that these other people will be my crown of glory--the people who have come to know the Lord because of the Lord using me in their lives and the people who have received from my sacrifice. If I only give my leftovers and the things which are not dear to my heart, I will have no crown. And I want a crown to throw at the feet of Jesus--to show Him how much His sacrifice meant to me that I would be willing to give up everything for His glory. How can I glorify Him and honor Him and show Him my gratitude and devotion?

I must give my life away.