When God Rocks Our World

I don't know what is happening. I only know that I have never felt such love for God and such a sweet ache of longing. Something is happening, but it defies words. For someone who loves words, that's frustrating.

I wasn't looking for change. I was quite content with my life the way it was. I didn't need my theological world to be rocked, and I didn't need to be confronted with everything. Or maybe I did. At least God sure thought I needed it.

I didn't ask for God to reveal more of Himself to me. But He chose to do so anyway. Little did I know that this unveiling was simply setting the stage for something else. Because if I had not been studying Reformed theology I never would have gone searching the Desiring God website for more info, I never would have found the "TULIP" series, I never would have watched the video on Perseverance of the Saints, and the aside about the necessity of forgiveness never would have reached my ears.

Those words - not more than a few sentences in length - hit my soul like a semi. It truly TRULY scared me. Through John Piper, the Spirit spoke to me. And it cut me like a knife.

I don't know everything that is going on, but if God wanted to get my attention, He succeeded. It it to my shame to admit it, but I have prayed more in the last two months than in the previous two years.

I have adopted a prayer of John Piper's as my own: "Fix me, change me, alter me, go down, kill me if You can't, but don't let me live out of sync with the Bible! Don't let my heart stay out of sync with the Bible!" Come and change me, God. Make me into a daughter You can be proud of.

These are dangerous prayers, but I think they are the only ones that will make us into people that show how glorious Christ really is. It's God's glory that is at stake, and He will not share it with another.

And that is why, after all my hard work to lose weight, God took away all the control I thought I had. He took it away to show me that He is in control. I was taking glory for myself in what *I* did, in what *I* accomplished. I tried to take God's glory for myself. And so He stripped me down to remind me that all the glory is His.

"For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act;
For how can My name be profaned?
And My glory I will not give to another." -Isaiah 48:11 (NASB)

Help me, Father, to live worthily of being Your child, and give me the power to live out what the Bible says to do. In the final analysis, I really do love You and want to live for You, and I am frustrated that I fail so miserably every day.

Give me power over my eating and drinking, give me power over my unforgiving heart. Give me all of Yourself and never let me be satisfied with anything less. Amen.