Me without Me

BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) has been such a blessing to me this year. I really feel like God is jump starting my faith that has been, admittingly, stagnant this past year. I wish that He didn't need to use my career to show me these things but His ways are always better than mine (I say through gritted teeth). I often wish He would shoot me an e-mail and say, "Listen Kels, here are some things that we need to work on...I think you are made of more than this". Yet He shows me these things in a way that will not allow me to just sugar coat my life, making it look pretty but really refine me, change me, grow me. For that I am thankful. Tough love perhaps. It says in this weeks BSF notes, "Opposition is inevitable for any active Christian...God allows opposition so that we may be deeply rooted in Him and experience the delights of proving his strength and comfort given in trials."

Last Monday the lecture was on the man whom Jesus healed on the Sabbath. The first thing He asks the man is, "Do you want to get well?" A seemingly ridiculous question to ask a man who has been sick for 38 years. Yet how often do we sit in our own disorders, acting like we want to "get well" but too comfortable to move. What are my disorders? In what is God asking me, "Kelsey, do you want to get well?" So I made a list: I'm selfish with my time, I worry and pull anxiety into my life for the heck of it, pride, jealous and competitive with people I love, impatient. I know the list could go on for years but I'm selfish with my time, so I stopped.

Do I want to get well? Think...Pray...Sip of tea. Yes. I do. I wholeheartedly do. Now what? What did the man do next? Obeyed. He got up, picked up his mat, and walked. Yet it wasn't until he obeyed that he experienced the new life given by God.

But here is where I struggle. What does obedience look like in my life? What is God asking me to do? I want to be nothing so that He can be everything (Phil 2:6-8) but HOW?

To become like Him I need to know Him.

Lord, reveal yourself to me. I know you want my submissive heart but I don't know how to give it to you or, rather, I don't know what to do once I let go. What does me without me look like?