It's not mine

As I was driving to work this morning I heard a song that I had heard a hundred times. The words can and are sometimes sung by heart without thought of what is being said. Maybe you’ve heard of it…it goes something like this…Give us clean hands …give us pure hearts…let us not lift our souls to another. Simple song. Simple words. I grew up thinking that I had to do something or wear this style and length of clothes. I grew up waiting for God (who surprisingly looks a lot like Ariel’s dad in The Little Mermaid) to strike me down if I messed up. It was a childhood of fear and anxious times. I guess you could say that I was a fearful, anxious Christian. Still, even after seeing that God wasn’t like the guy that was painted for me, what hit me this morning never had occurred to me this plain. We cannot work for ANYTHING that God can give us. The song was asking God to give us clean hands and a clean heart and to not life our souls to another. It didn’t say, as I clean my hands and work at cleaning up my heart please help me. NO!!! God does the work and we just have to be willing to let him.
We, as Americans, have become so self reliant and self assured. Take for instance when someone loses a leg or an arm or gets disabled. They feel helpless and sometimes a burden to others. Just look at what we do with our elderly!!! In other cultures the elderly are taken care of without a thought of self or the work that comes with it. What do we do? Send them away to live in a home where they know no one and visit them monthly or bi-weekly. We must realize that as Christians, we must come to him humbly and let him do the work. I think this is why most of us have problems and ask God why this or why that. He wants to help us in every situation possible. BUT he cannot do anything until you give him the issue or problem. I am definitely guilty of this. I think this is probably why I get discouraged sometimes about the youth group and discouraged about being a pastor in general. I need to remember that it is his ministry, not mine. His church not mine. His children not mine. His strength not mine. His money not mine. His life not mine.


Good Day