Make Thankfulness your sacrifice to the Lord…… That’s what Psalm 50:14 says. When I first read that scripture a while back it didn’t hold much weight. I honestly probably didn’t give it a second thought. I think we have a habit of doing that with a lot of scripture we read. Just taking it in as a fleeting thought and then moving on to the next sentence. But something I have learned on the race is God has a funny way of bringing scripture alive. And by bring scripture alive I mean orchestrating circumstances and event where we literally live out the scriptures we fleetingly skimmed over only months before.
You see in Month 4 which was in Lesotho(January) God shined a whole new light on what it actually means to be grateful and in turn how to truly be thankful. He was throwing revelation after revelation at me. That gratitude is a personal choice, that no one in this world can take my grateful heart away from me or make me choose a grateful heart, that if I choose to be grateful to the Lord in ALL situations He will be able to fill me with His complete Joy. That over time making the daily choice to be grateful in the really easy situations allows us to create the habit and thus makes it easier to choose gratitude in the REALLY difficult situations. If you would have asked me in month 4 about gratitude I would have spurted off to you like I was some gratitude guru. I mean for goodness sake I got it tattooed on my body. (Yea… my right forearm says ” Ke Thabile ” on it now. Which means “I am grateful” in Sesotho, the language spoken in Lesotho… It looks super dope and now I will forever have a constant reminder of a choice that changed the course of my life).
Over the past 6 months on the race this lesson I began in Lesotho has exploded in my little human brain. God was simply testing the waters with me back in Lesotho. He threw out a few nuggets of wisdom to see if I would bite. And let me tell you I am still caught on the hook. I had no idea what He would have in store to teach me throughout the rest of the race.
In Month 7 which was in Malaysia(April) God threw a curve ball at me and turned my entire world on its head. He revealed to me some very important areas of my life that I had not surrendered to Him yet and asked me to open my death grip on them. God wanted ALL of me. Not almost all of me. Because I had at this point surrendered basically every part of myself to the Lord. So I was doing pretty good you know? I was growing in intimacy with God, pushing myself in ministry, thriving in my community… I always heard the Lord in the back of my mind though, whispering “What about this part of your life? I want you to let me have that part too” But I was 7 months into the race and had gotten really really good at ignoring God.
Classic right? I know.
Well sometimes God works in mysterious ways so He stopped asking…. Yea. I got exactly what I wanted right? That constant whisper in the back of my mind telling me to release my whole self to the Lord just went away. Cool. I must be good then….
WRONG
Oh my gosh so wrong…
Instead of God politely asking me, allowing me to choose into Him and the blessings I am sure He had waiting on the other side of compliant surrender, He went another route. He had another angle lined up where I no longer got to choose surrender, but was forced into it. Now hear what I am saying and do not assume what I mean. God in no way forced me into something I didn’t want. He doesn’t do that. He only works in situations in our lives that we invite Him into because He is a gentlemen and gave us the free will to choose out of His kingdom. But you see the entire time I was ignoring God and not surrendering ALL parts of my life and in turn not allowing Him to hold complete control over my life, I was also praying fervently. Asking Him to deepen my faith, strengthen my trust in Him, allow me to become even more like Christ and that I would be able to be called into a deeper sense of communion with His Spirit. I knew there were parts of me I hadn’t let go of yet, but I thought it would be too painful to do myself. So I basically asked God to help me let go and in turn allowed God to strip me of the areas where I wasn’t strong enough to let go on my own.
***I know by this point everyone of you has pondered or even become frustrated with the fact that I haven’t gone into more detail about what these areas are. Why I haven’t been completely transparent with what it is God stripped me of. But this blog is very difficult to write because this is something I am still currently walking through. This is a huge part of my testimony from the race and it deserves to be told even though I’m not ready to share every single detail. I pray you all understand and take heart that one day I will have the strength and ability to speak boldly about this instance and the way God used it to radically change my life.***
As you can probably gauge month 7 was REALLY hard. I literally went from being in a season of feeling on top of the world, all my ducks were in a row, I felt confident, strong, like a force for the Kingdom that couldn’t be knocked down…. to then all of a sudden on my knees weeping before the Lord. (Not figuratively. I was brought to my knees in full surrender)
I had entered a season I have never had the pleasure of experiencing before. I was stripped of myself, laying vulnerable and completely open before the Lord. And as I knelt there in my room in Malaysia I had a choice. I could go with my feelings… the ones telling me I was worthless, that I was a failure, that I would never be able to be used in the Kingdom(also the ones that told me to ignore the Lord in the first place). I could have pitied myself, retreated from my team and shut down from the race.
OR
I could offer up a sacrifice of thanks to the Lord. I could Praise His name and rejoice in His presence. I could take my gaze off of the world and place it on God.
I don’t know if I have ever felt the weight of what it feels like to sacrifice something before that moment. Because I didn’t want to be thankful. I didn’t want to feel God. I didn’t want to hear what He had to say. I wanted to cry. I wanted someone to feel bad for me. I wanted to give up. But we cant trust our feelings because they are subjective and highly based on our worldly thoughts. I do know, however that I can trust God. So I began to praise the Lord. Thanking Him for any and everything I could think of. For bringing me all the way across the world, for creating me as worthy, righteous, blameless, and forgiven, for allowing me to sow into His Kingdom everyday….. I felt none of these things as true. It felt like I was reciting a poem written by a man I’ve never met before. But I knew the Lord has called and willed me to have a thankful heart(1 Thes 5:18). So I continued everyday thanking the Lord. Offering up my broken worldly self so that He could renew my spirit and strength with His. And slowly over the past 3 months God has renewed my heart. He has truly placed His Joy in my heart and allowed me to walk gracefully through one of the hardest trials I’ve ever faced. All of the things I gave thanks for in month 7 that seemed like chore to come up with He has honored and brought alive. I am truly thankful for the opportunity to serve Him whole-heartedly everyday and walk firmly and confidently in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, “16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
Over the past 3 months I have continued offering up a sacrifice of thankfulness to God in all circumstances. Not only when I am feeling on top of the world, with all my ducks in a row, but also when I am trudging through the valley of the shadow of death. With every worldly emotion and feeling and desire breathing down my back. Because God has given me the opportunity to fully immerse myself in Him. To surrender all of me to Him and be able to taste and see how GOOD the Lord truly is.
Fully surrendering myself to the Lord is something I have to choose everyday. Some days are easier than others, but I know its going to be a lifelong process of choosing Him above all else. My hope is that by writing about my experiences and giving you a small glimpse into this HUGE testimony of Gods faithfulness you can take some time and reflect on your own lives. Is there anything your holding onto that you don’t want God to have? Anything you feel is holding you back from fully giving/immersing yourself in the Lord? I challenge you to take a step of faith. Offer up a sacrifice of thankfulness to the Lord when it gets hard and keep reminding yourself that the valley you’re walking through can only be so long and at some point it will open up into the most beautiful land overflowing with milk and honey.
I love you all so much and Papa loves you so much more than that.
Always,
Mar
