S-A-C-R-I-F-I-C-E - It isn't easy

If you stopped by because you read my devotion today over at Encouragement Cafe, WELCOME!   So glad you are here!

Going a little ahead, he fell to the ground and prayed for a way out: “Papa, Father, you can—can’t you?—get me out of this. Take this cup away from me. But please, not what I want—what do you want?” Mark 14:35-36 MSG 

At the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve my one word S-A-C-R-I-F-I-C-E activated like a Cinderella spell, barely a week since God dropped it into my heart.

I tried to shake it off like a wet dog after a bath, but it wouldn’t leave. Sacrifice didn’t conjure up those fuzzy, warm, feel-good emotions like grace or faith or prayer. No, after a year of tremendous loss, sacrifice was the hardest word to accept because I already felt given-out. What more? What more could I possibly give? I felt exhausted, wrung out, spent and ungrateful and the New Year was only seconds old. 

Days later, I hunkered down for a relaxing winter’s night before we froze under the polar vortex headed our way. Another crisis came and I went out again; called to sacrifice and serve.

During short breaks, I closed my eyes and rocked silently in my own grief while my heart froze like the pipes beneath my mother’s house. This sacrifice was hard and painful. My hands and feet served until my nerves shook me to the bone and my ingratitude ground me to a pulp. Worn down, I prayed God would melt those frozen pipes, let the waters flow and release me from that place. Hours passed, and just when I thought God fell deaf, release came. Flowing water never sounded so good—like cascading waterfalls—from every faucet.  

Homeward bound on those darkened country roads, words from a familiar childhood hymn drifted from the stereo, melting my ingratitude. “Are we weak and heavy laden cumbered with a load of care? Precious Savior, still our refuge, take it to the Lord in prayer.”  

Tears I’d bravely suppressed spilled everywhere—my own heart’s release—and I cried that sloppy, blubbering, snotty cry all the way home. And when the tears stopped flowing, I wondered if I’d failed the test. Did I sacrifice well? Did I really offer up my best to the Lord in all I did this week, or had my ingratitude nullified my offering?  

Before my heart could punctuate the question, God’s answer came. “Well done. You obeyed and did the hard and painful things. You would fail only if you had ignored my calling and stayed comfortable.” 

“But, Lord, I grumbled inside. I asked for relief. How is that serving well?”

“Even Jesus asked for the cup to pass, didn’t he? But when it didn’t pass, he drank. He went where I called him to go. He sacrificed—gave until it hurt—out of obedience to his Father. And so did you.” 

Sacrifice—the offering of all we are and all we do—to the Lord is hard and often painful or it wouldn’t be called sacrifice. I can’t say I’m excited about this word, nor have I fully embraced it, but my heart is listening and drawing nearer and nearer to God's throne because it calls for strength beyond my own.

Ah, yes. Maybe that. Maybe it’s all that—the drawing nearer to God—whatever it takes, until Heaven’s waters flow. When we surrender everything to God, we gain even more—God’s favor, authority, glory, salvation, eternal life.

Do you find yourself in the midst of a hard sacrifice? Maybe it’s been a long year of hard sacrifices and God’s calling for more. If you feel you’ve given all you have to give, take heart, Jesus is there to strengthen you, to walk along side you and encourage you. Call on His name and He will draw near to you.

Prayer: Heavenly Papa, draw near to us, especially when the sacrifice is hard and we feel spent. Teach us to draw upon the strength of Jesus. And Papa? When we pray for the hard cup of sacrifice to pass us by, let our hearts’ desires to line up with yours. Not our will, but yours, Papa. Amen.

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.

Romans 12:1 MSG

Letting Go: a Hard Sacrifice

In the silence I willed my aching feet up the step ladder one more time. My weary heart sank deep as I dunked the paint brush deep

into the sunny yellow paint can. One more step. One more stroke. Just. one. more. 

Twenty-five years prior and five months pregnant with my daughter, I jumped up the rungs of that ladder, my heart feeling ten pounds lighter than today. You see, then I was painting God's gift to us--the house I longed for...prayed for...every time I strolled by. It was the perfect gift where my husband and I raised our two children, entertained friends and ministered hope. It was a true desire of my heart that God wrapped up with a shiny red bow long ago. 

And now? Now, God asked me to let it go, to change course, to release it all. 

With every coat of paint I rolled over memories hidden deep and dear inside my heart. The weight of all God asked me to sacrifice now grew heavier with every stroke. How could I release this precious gift? How could I let it go and allow strangers in? Would they know how precious this house has been or would they just consider it a place to hang their hat? 

But then God whispered, "There's something more. There's something new. Let. It. Go."

You see, I'd been white-knuckling this house like an idol--wrapping my fist around it and hanging on with all my might as though without it I'd lose my true identity; like it was my source of blessing rather than the blessing.  God was my source--is my source--and this house was but a very good gift and now He was asking me to let it go; to sacrifice something very good for something even better. 

In the midst of hard sacrifices, God calls us to worship; to refocus our attention off of ourselves and onto His goodness; to offer up our thanksgiving for His faithfulness in our past and thanksgiving for all His promises for our future.

"For I know the plans I have for you" declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

So, I transferred my focus from myself to God's goodness and worshiped God with every roll of the paint, thanking Him for the life lived between these walls and the family He helped us raise. And when I did, my whole attitude changed. I realized God wasn't asking me to give up something very good for something even less, but rather to release the hold this home has had on my heart and to prepare for change.  Something better. Something lovely and freeing and full of His hope. Because that's how God rolls.

The paint dried and every surface reflected the Son just right. We staged the rooms in picture-perfect-excellence and manicured every corner of the yard. It was time to release the gift and let strangers in.

Have you ever been asked to make a hard sacrifice? If so, was it easy to release that something? How did God use that sacrifice for His glory?

Precious Lord, thank you for the blessings. Thank you for the years of family memories and your faithfulness in providing all our needs every single day. Now we release these treasures back to you. We freely offer your gifts as a sacrifice of praise to use as you see fit. Prepare our hearts for the next chapter, the next adventure, the next new thing. Help our eyes to stay fixed on you.  Amen.

Now what, God?

Mary awakens. Her newborn, wrapped in rags and lying in a crude straw filled bed, beckons her. Tired from traveling and birthing she had little time to ponder the night’s events—the angelic fanfare and surprise visits from burly shepherds. Busy with all the mundane tasks like feedings and swaddling changes, Mary might have thought, “Now what, God?”

 

Not the life you’d imagine for the mother of God’s son, but just as she was chosen for her faithfulness and servant heart, Mary remained loyal to God’s teaching, even in the midst of the everyday.

After eight day, she and Joseph, “took [Jesus] up to Jerusalem to offer him to God as commanded in God’s Law: ‘Every male who opens the womb shall be a holy offering to God,’ and also to sacrifice the ‘pair of doves or two young pigeons’ prescribed in God’s Law,” (Luke 2: 22-24 The Message).

This imagery of Mary’s obedience, offering and sacrifice sets and example for our own lives as we ponder all God may have prophesied over our lives.  

Each January 1^st we awaken to a new birth of sorts that holds endless possibilities, but soon enough, we get stuck in all the striving and the failures that we lose sight of what God’s trying to accomplish. We might even catch ourselves asking, “Now what, God?”**

 

**Wondering how this all ends up? Hop over to {re}fresh and find out.