See, God and I had a deal. I was very clear on that deal. I will follow Him and he will give me “the desires of my heart”, right?
I once heard a story about how to catch a monkey. Monkeys are very curious creatures, playful and stubborn too. So here’s what you do: take a coconut and drill a hole in it, dump the milk and put a marble inside. You then take that coconut and anchor it in a tree. The monkey who finds the marble will reach inside to grab it. Here’s the trick; once his hand is wrapped around the marble his fist is too big to fit back out the same hole. So he is trapped, desperate for his treasure and unwilling to let go so he can be free.
God called me out. He made me realize that I wasn’t actually giving Him my life. I was giving Him 11 months of my life, and then I had told Him that He was going to give me my life back. Yes, that is what I said, I told God that He was going to…. Dang it, I’m the monkey! I was holding so tightly to what I had that I was withholding my life from God. I was limiting God to the desires of my heart and missing His bigger picture. I realized that I needed to try and let go, to try and release my grip on the life that I had, and give it up to Him. So I have, I am no longer holding God to the contents of the coconut. It’s a really freeing feeling actually, a really exciting one. I understand now that God’s bigger picture is the desire of my heart. If He decides to give me my life back, wonderful! But if He decides that I should go elsewhere, then that too is wonderful.
Walking step by step with Christ is a pretty beautiful thing. I never realized that holding tightly to something without God could make me feel like I’m in a free fall in life, but releasing everything for God gives me a comfort that cannot be explained. I know that God’s got it.
So here’s a question: What’s in your coconut?
