I am wrecked. Sounds almost cliché these days. “Lord wreck my life for You.” Lots of Christians are saying it, praying it
and writing about it. This is when you
come to the “is this all there is?” moment in your spiritual journey. You know something is missing, but for the
life of you, you can’t figure it out.
About a year ago I decided to
lock arms with the praying “God wreck my life” crowd. I loved what God was doing in their lives as a result and I wanted it as well. I surely felt I had nothing to lose
anyway. What could He wreck? I was serving the Lord leading a women’s
Bible study, teaching, writing, facebooking, blogging…what could possibly go
wrong? Ahem!
One thing I learned about the
“Lord wreck my life for You” prayer, is that if you have the guts to pray it …
He will answer. He is faithful like
that. He will do whatever it takes for
you to find that something missing thing.
Which is usually Him.
Hear me when I say that you can
be neck deep in ministry yet only have a smidgeon of Him in it. Yes, this I know. It’s not to say I wasn’t doing good things,
God things, fruitful things but I unexpectedly and unknowingly changed the
trajectory of my own personal spiritual life. My aim was no longer at growing deeper in the grace of the gospel but
making sure all my boxes were ticked and everything pertaining to ministry was
rocking. It was. The ministry had tripled in size and we were a
Bible studying, scripture memorizing, hands held high worshiping group of God
loving sisters. It was a ministry
leaders dream come true. But I was empty
and worn out. That was when I asked God
to wreck my life.
One year later, I am no
longer in that role nor that church. God
called me out to what I am not sure. As
Abraham left his country in response to God’s call “even though he didn’t know
where he was going”, so did I. At least
I am in good company as scary and un-certain as it seems. While I have no earthly clue where I am
going, I do know I am going with Him. Since
I don’t know where I am headed, I confess that I am not exactly sure what I am
supposed to do either. I am used to
being identified by what I do. Now that
I am no longer women’s ministry leader/teacher than who am I?
Since I prayed that “God
wreck my life prayer” one year ago, God has systematically pulled out every
single thing that I held onto for security and identity. I came to realize at a
deeper level that my identity had been wrapped up in what I did rather then Whose
I was. You aren’t aware of the level that you
associate your identity with someone or something until that someone or
something is taken away.
It wasn’t just the spiritual
side of my life that was wrecked. Any
label that I had placed my identity in got wrecked. Facing full-blown empty nesting wrecked me. Losing friendships wrecked me. Facing the
loss of aging family members to Alzheimer’s and death wrecked me. Dealing with chronic illness wrecked me. Challenging family dynamics wrecked me.
Yet all of it led to this one
predominant point. All the things that I
held onto for security and identity apart from God could be wrecked. The only security and identity that is
unshakeable is that which I have in Christ.
He is everything I need. He is my
sufficiency. I am complete in Him. It is the only thing that remains. As long as I place my identity and security
in anything other then who I am in Christ, I run the risk of a life that can
get wrecked. I want to live “wreck-less”.
Read this quote by Bryan
Chapel from his most excellent book Holiness
by Grace. (p167)
“The discipline of affliction
also hardens us, in that it relaxes our grasp on this world….We walk through
life as our Savior did – as pilgrims with eyes and energies focused on future
glory – because we have been stripped of the delusion that this world can offer
any satisfaction that is not always in
jeopardy.” (emphasis mine)
You see if I could truly
grasp what it means to live “wreck-less” then I would be able to live reckless
for Christ. I have to let go of those
things that I am in jeopardy of losing. If
all of what I need, I already have in Him and I firmly establish this as the
foundation of my belief system then I could love recklessly, give recklessly,
serve others recklessly and live in His name recklessly. In order to do that, I have to set out to
learn how to live “wreck-less”. I have
to learn to live in such a way that all of my identity and security is found in
Him and not in a position, a person, a bank account, a healthy body, or
whatever I place my hope in.
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